CHICAGO, March 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Neponset Rowing Club collaborated in a volunteer initiative alongside the SBB Research Group Foundation, which partners with local nonprofits through its Champion A Charity Program.
The Neponset Rowing Club is strengthening its mission to make rowing more accessible to a diverse range of community members. As a community-focused rowing program, the club is dedicated to sharing the joy and benefits of rowing with as many people as possible, regardless of their background or experience.
An SBB Research Group Foundation volunteer, Robert Davis, played a role in supporting this mission. Davis collaborated with the Neponset Rowing Club board to develop a comprehensive year-end marketing strategy. This new approach included refreshed messaging and a communication strategy that has already resulted in increased website visits, higher subscriptions to the club’s mailing list, and an improvement in their email click-through rates.
“Rowing has a transformative effect for young adults who may not thrive in typical sports, and bringing more awareness to the Neponset Rowing Club will allow for a tremendous impact for those individuals,” said Davis, reflecting on the project’s importance. By improving their visibility and outreach, the Neponset Rowing Club is better positioned to reach even more individuals and share the benefits of rowing with a wider community.
To learn more about Neponset Rowing and their mission to connect people to rowing, visit https://www.neponsetrowingclub.org/neponset-rowing-club.
About the SBB Research Group Foundation
The SBB Research Group Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that furthers the philanthropic mission of SBB Research Group LLC (SBBRG), a Chicago-based investment management firm led by Sam Barnett, Ph.D., and Matt Aven. The Foundation provides grants to support ambitious organizations solving unmet needs with thoughtful, long-term strategies. In addition, the Foundation sponsors the SBBRG STEM Scholarship, which supports students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees.
Contact: Erin Noonan Organization: SBB Research Group Foundation Email: grants@sbbrg.org Address: 450 Skokie Blvd, Building 600, Northbrook, IL 60062 United States Phone: 1-847-656-1111
Scientists comment on science related elements of the Spring Statement delivered by the Chancellor.
Dr Alicia Greated, Executive Director, Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE):
“Today’s spring statement confirmed the difficult context for the upcoming spending review. The Chancellor emphasised the importance of economic growth – and we will continue, alongside the rest of the R&D sector, to make a strong case for R&D’s role in delivering it, and for an ambitious settlement for R&D and innovation in June. It is welcome that the chancellor recognises the importance of capital investment, which includes R&D.
“Defence R&D is an important part of the UK research system. It is critical that the breadth of UK R&D is supported by the UK Government if R&D is to drive economic growth and deliver wide ranging benefits to society.
“We look forward to seeing the detail behind the fiscal measures announced today and await the detail of departmental allocations following the autumn budget last October. Proper scrutiny of R&D funding allocations is of great importance ahead of the spending review this June.”
Dr Joe Marshall, CEO, National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB), said:
“It was reassuring that the Chancellor acknowledged a major UK strength is our position as a ‘hub for global innovation’. This shouldn’t be taken for granted and is the result of a strong and effective supporting ecosystem.
“While efficiency savings in government should always be sought, and the transformation fund is a welcome initiative, it will be important to ensure that these changes are carried forward without negative impact on the research and innovation ecosystem.
“The Chancellor has today stressed the increasing importance of defence spending in an uncertain world. It must be remembered that research and innovation is as crucial for defence supply chains as it is to other sectors of the economy.
“The £400m ringfenced for defence innovation, the defence growth board, and the alignment of defence spending with the industrial strategy are all positive signs that the Government recognises this – the vital role of the ecosystem that supports universities and businesses come together must be prioritised within these interventions.”
The nature of this story means everyone quoted above could be perceived to have a stake in it. As such, our policy is not to ask for interests to be declared – instead, they are implicit in each person’s affiliation.
Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
Alina Pakhomova
Photo from personal archive
Alina Pakhomova, 4th year student of the educational program “Computer Science and Engineering» MIEM HSE, studied for six months at the oldest university in Europe — the University of Bologna. She went to Italy under the academic mobility program, and upon returning to Moscow, she told about her impressions of life and study in another country, leisure, new friends and, of course, the famous Italian cuisine.
University of Bologna and the educational system
The University of Bologna is considered the oldest university in the Western world, where Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Umberto Eco studied. In addition, it is one of the top universities in Italy. Therefore, when I saw that Bologna was on the list of universities to which HSE had the opportunity to apply, there was no doubt: I applied only there. Besides, the programs at other universities, to be honest, were not very suitable.
When you go on mobility, you replace your courses with those at the university where you will study, regardless of the field. I am in my 4th year of bachelor’s degree, and it turned out that I studied on master’s courses, since they were the best fit for replacement. In addition, there are more master’s programs in English than bachelor’s, which means there is more choice.
The semester lasts from September to February. Exams were, as in HSE, in autumn and winter, but, unfortunately, in winter they are there both before and after the New Year. After the free winter holidays at HSE, it was difficult to sit and chat during the winter holidays in Italy…
Lectures and practical classes
Studying at the University of Bologna is very different from how we study at the HSE. Classes last three hours, sometimes two. Frankly, you lose focus after the usual hour and a half. In Italy, it is important to sit down after a class and reread the lectures, delve into the material and take notes, otherwise you simply won’t remember anything. At the HSE, seminars are very helpful in consolidating the material, which the University of Bologna doesn’t have.
There are laboratory works, but, unlike HSE, where you most often do the work at home, and in the practical class you only ask questions or already defend the work, in Bologna they are done by students right in the practical classes and only finished at home, which happens rarely, only if you did not have time.
Probably my favorite course is Artificial Intelligence in Industry, because it was a course where you delve into how everything works in real life, and lectures were often given by invited lecturers from foreign companies. By the way, in Bologna, another common practice in IT areas is a project as an exam. That is, you just pass one big project, and the grade for it is your final grade for the course.
Where to live in Bologna
Housing is hard here. The university does not provide dormitories: they are there, but it is almost impossible to get them. If you do not have 1000 euros for a room in a student co-living, where exchange students from other European countries (Erasmus students) usually live, then welcome to the “Hunger Games”. Here you will not choose an apartment, but the landlord (landlord) will choose the one he likes best from the mass of students who want to rent housing.
Then you need to look for either a double (bed in a double room) or a single (bed in a single room). The prices are 350 and 500 euros respectively. Another option is to join someone and rent the entire apartment.
Tip 1: try to look for housing through acquaintances or students who were on mobility before you, and do it in advance. Also look through chats, as students often post the housing they lived in and find a replacement.
Tip 2: Don’t be upset if you can’t find anything in advance. You can rent temporary accommodation and then continue searching in Bologna itself once you’ve arrived there.
What did you like most about Italy?
Here it is easy to arrange a mini-vacation and travel to another city or country. For example, I flew for the weekend to France, Denmark and other European countries, because the tickets cost 15-20 euros (1500-2000 rubles) one way. And the journey takes very little time.
Speaking about Italy itself, it really helped me slow down. In Moscow, you are constantly in some kind of hustle and bustle, constantly going somewhere on the metro, wasting a lot of time on it. In Bologna, on foot, 20 minutes — and you are already there. Here, it is much easier to meet for a short walk or a get-together in a cafe, invite someone for a coffee before work or for an Aperol after classes.
How the vision of the future profession has changed
Before Italy, I thought I had decided on the direction I wanted to develop in. My study and work experience combines several areas: IT, marketing, and events. All this makes me an excellent devrel. But after studying abroad, I realized that I don’t want to stop there. I plan to continue my education in a master’s degree. Now I am most interested in product management in the field of high technologies.
Communication and extracurricular student life
People and networking were one of the main goals of my trip. There were 7 of us from HSE who went on mobility, and we didn’t know each other before Italy. But the circumstance of finding ourselves alone in another country and trying to figure out a lot of new rules and bureaucratic requirements really brought us together. In Moscow, we would most likely never have crossed paths, and even if we had, we would hardly have become friends: we are all very different. But in another country, everything is different, the very circumstances of life brought us closer. And communication with completely different people, unlike your usual environment in Moscow, changes you a lot.
In Europe, there is an organization called ESN (Erasmus Student Network). Their branches are usually in every student city. Either students or graduates work there. They organize various meetings and events for dating, trips and travel with big discounts. They also have partners, and you can get discounts in establishments or companies with an ESN member card (it costs 10 euros). For example, one of the partners is a low-cost airline that provides 10% discounts and free luggage space with an ESN card.
I wouldn’t say that there is some kind of super-organization of all events, but there are simply a lot of them. The events are mainly aimed at introducing people, uniting them by interests and providing an opportunity to have a good time together. For example, one of the events is The Babel Nights: people gather in different audiences and communicate in a certain language. English, Italian, Spanish, French, German – you can choose whichever is closer to you and go to the right audience. You can also go to the theater together (cheaper with ESN) and to exhibitions. In general, everyone will find something to their liking.
There are other student clubs. For example, some guys just organized a hiking chat and every Saturday they go somewhere on a short day hike. When I left, they decided to expand and create sub-chats for basketball and volleyball fans.
It’s easy to meet anyone here, but the common problem is that communication is very superficial. To be honest, sometimes you get tired of the huge amount of small talk.
Local cuisine and favourite dishes
Food in Italy is a separate topic. What is interesting here is not so much what food is the most delicious, but how Italians treat their food and the order of eating. Take a cappuccino after 12, order a pizza for two, drink autumn special coffee from Starbucks with pumpkin syrup – get ready for deportation, as we often joked when doing something like this. Italians are very sensitive to their gastronomic culture and really don’t like it when someone doesn’t follow the rules.
My favorite dishes are: croissant with pistachio, cappuccino and lasagne. I won’t mention pizza and pasta because I feel sick from eating so much of them. I don’t understand how Italians can eat pasta every day. Once we asked a friend: “Are there days when you don’t eat pasta for lunch?” His answer perfectly describes the Italian culture: “Of course, but then I’ll definitely have it for dinner.”
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Scientists Sakumi Iki and Ikuma Adachi recently spent a lot of time watching monkeys scratch themselves.
Self-scratching among non-human primates is known to indicate social tension and anxiety. The two researchers from Kyoto University, Japan, wanted to use this link to work out whether being anxious (and so scratching a lot) made their monkey subjects more pessimistic, or whether their pessimism was what drove their anxiety (and their scratching).
Their findings suggest the former is true, as the primates were more likely to make a pessimistic choice if they had scratched their body. This not only provides evidence for an important theory about how physiological changes are linked to emotional states, but also shows that monkeys’ body language can reveal some interesting cues about how animal consciousness may differ from that of humans.
Several studies have previously shown that self-scratching in primates is linked to social tension and emotional state. For instance, a 1991 study found monkeys who were given an anxiety relief drug seemed to scratch themselves less, whereas monkeys who received an anxiety-inducing drug increased self-scratching.
Research has also shown subordinate capuchin monkeys self-scratch more when they are approached by a dominant individual, perhaps due to the increased risk of aggression. Japanese macaques with a high tendency to scratch themselves are less likely to make peace after a conflict with their group companions.
Researchers of animal and human behaviour often use self-scratching as a measure of short-term changes in anxiety, social tension and emotional state. Self-scratching is also linked to social tension in humans: people often scratch more during a short period of high anxiety.
Self-scratching is an example of what behavioural scientists call displacement behaviour, which includes yawning, lip-biting, fumbling and face-touching.
Research has shown it can also allow us to better cope with anxiety. For example in 2012, UK researchers asked participants to do difficult (and in some cases unsolvable) arithmetic calculations in front of an audience, and found that participants who displayed higher rates of self-scratching during the test also reported a lower level of anxiety after the test.
Japanese macaques are well known for bathing in hot springs. mapman/Shutterstock
The researchers at Kyoto University found that macaques seem to have a different relationship to displacement behaviour than humans.
Iki and Adachi worked with six adult Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). They used videos of a macaque scratching themselves to induce self-scratching in their study subjects, since this behaviour is contagious, similar to yawning.
They trained the monkeys to choose between different options on a greyscale touchscreen. The darker the shade of grey, the more likely the monkeys were to get a food reward.
When they chose the lightest shade of grey, the touchscreen temporarily blanked out. The darkest shade of grey always rewarded the monkeys with food and the three shades in the middle had inconsistent outcomes.
These stimuli tested whether the monkeys were biased towards optimism or pessimism. The monkeys who self-scratched were more likely to be pessimistic about the outcome of the inconsistent stimuli. The researchers measured pessimism in terms of reaction time.
The longer it took a monkey to choose the ambiguous shades, the more pessimistic the researchers believed the monkeys to be. Monkeys didn’t seem to hesitate if they didn’t scratch. The researchers argue that scratching was a sign the monkeys were anxious and being anxious made the monkeys more pessimistic about the future.
Their study was one of the first to test what’s known as the James-Lange theory in non-human animals. The theory argues there is a sequential connection between behavioural and physiological components of emotions and our experience of these emotions. According to this idea, behavioural and physiological responses happen first. This means, for example, that having an irregular heartbeat would make us anxious.
The new results support the James–Lange theory. Negative emotions (measured by self-scratching) induce pessimism, and not vice-versa. The areas of the brain linked to basic emotions, such as fear, are similar in mammals. However, it is unclear whether the way we experience these emotions is comparable to other species.
For example, two human subjects who have similar physiological responses in relation to anxiety may perceive it differently. One subject may be OK with anxiety, another subject may struggle to handle such situation. We know non-human primates have individual responses to anxiety, but we don’t fully know why and we can’t ask them.
This study highlights interesting similarities, but also differences between humans and other species. A possible difference is related to consciousness. Humans have a conscious experience of their bodily responses which affects how we respond to them.
An irregular heartbeat can make us anxious. This isn’t just because it causes a physiological response that induces stress, but also since we know that something is wrong when we feel that our heartbeat is irregular, which can make us even more anxious.
I say this is “possibly” a difference because some researchers argue that other animals, like chimpanzees or elephants, may have some form of consciousness.
Humans, unlike the Japanese macaques of this study, can also have the opposite temporal pattern predicted by the James-Lange theory. If I know that I have an exam tomorrow, this thought may make my heartbeat become irregular.
The short-term link between emotional responses and the perception of these responses could be shared by many primates (the group of animals that include humans, other apes, monkeys and lemurs) and other mammals too. But research is yet to demonstrate this conclusively.
Research like the one by Iki and Adachi demonstrates the importance of studying a wide range of species, and not just the ones closest to humans, such as chimpanzees and bonobos, to better understand what factors shape behavioural and cognitive skills in the animal kingdom.
Bonaventura Majolo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
“Strawberry nose” can refer to a skin disorder called rhinophyma or large pores or blackheads on the noseRoman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
From watermelon stomach to chocolate cysts, you might wonder why doctors decided to name some ailments after foods – after all, it’s enough to put you off your dinner.
When early physicians and surgeons were studying the body to understand normal function or disease, they lacked modern microscopic and molecular imaging and diagnostic techniques. Instead, they had to rely on basic observational skills and often used easily recognised descriptors to explain the appearance of organs and diseases.
Food, then, became a convenient way to communicate the appearance of the body – in health and in sickness. This practice is known as eponymophilia and it continues today, particularly in pathology – the study of disease.
There are lots of eponyms to describe the female reproductive system. Many healthcare workers describe healthy ovaries, for instance, as almond shape and size, while the shape of a typical uterus is often likened to an upside-down pear.
Different shapes can be down to normal anatomical variation but can also be a sign of disease. Knowing these shapes and sizes allows for rapid identification during imaging assessments or medical examinations.
Following childbirth and the cutting of the umbilical cord, the mother must deliver the afterbirth. According to 16th century anatomist, Matteo Realdo Colombo, the afterbirth looked like a “flat-cake”, and so he named it “placenta”, which comes from the Latin word for a type of cake.
Doctors examine the placenta carefully post-delivery to make sure none is left inside the mother – a condition known as retained placenta – which happens in 0.1-3% of births. Retained placenta can cause post-partum haemorrhage and and even the death of the mother, so checking the placenta looks like a “flat-cake” can save lives.
While some eponyms, like the flat-cake placenta, seem straightforward, others can seem rather unkind. Take the common descriptions of Cushing’s syndrome for instance.
People with Cushing’s often have a larger than average abdomen and lean legs, known as “lemon on matchstick” and can develop a “moon face” and a “buffalo hump”.
Cushing’s disease is caused by long-term exposure to high levels of cortisol, a hormone the body makes to regulate its response to stress. It can develop naturally from tumours forming in the adrenal or pituitary glands, which produce cortisol.
More commonly, however, it’s caused by some medicines, such as steroids – which contain a synthetic version of cortisol.
Some eponyms can also function as euphemisms – making a serious, even threatening condition sound less worrying. Take “milky leg syndrome” or “milk leg”, for instance – deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the iliac veins in the pelvis or the femoral veins at the top of your legs.
The blockage prevents venous drainage – when veins drain deoxygenated blood and return it to the heart – from the legs, which causes painful, pale and swollen legs.
If not treated promptly, the condition can progress to phlegmasia cerulea dolens – a rare but serious complication of DVT causing fluid build-up that prevents arteries from delivering blood into the tissues – which can lead to tissue death and venous gangrene. Sadly, once venous gangrene has set in, amputation and death are common outcomes.
While this all sounds grim, spare a thought for those who suffer from “hot potato voice”, which describes the sound of someone who has an obstruction somewhere in the upper part of their airway. This blockage prevents the person from forming sounds properly and can be caused by an abscess in or around the tonsils, or a stone lodged in the throat.
Before I go on, it’s only fair to warn you that if you’re eating or drinking or you haven’t got the stomach for more graphic descriptions, you might not want to read any further.
Not for the faint-hearted
Pea soup diarrhoea is an apt description of a deeply unpleasant infection: salmonella. Salmonella – or food poisoning – is an infection with salmonella bacteria that causes diarrhoea, high temperature and stomach pains. It can be transmitted from person to person through contaminated food or water or from touching infected animals, their faeces, or their environment.
Thankfully, most healthy people recover fully by drinking plenty of fluids and resting. Younger or older people are at greater risk of more severe illness, as are immunocompromised people, and they may be prescribed antibiotics to help them recover from the infection.
While diarrhoea can look like pea-soup, some STIs can look like cauliflower. Yes, sexually transmitted warts caused by the human papilloma virus can have a “cauliflower-like appearance”.
The thick, white odourless discharge that can be a symptom of thrush is often likened to cottage cheese.
The vagina usually self-cleans by producing a white or clear discharge. The white colour is most common at the beginning or end of the menstrual cycle; however, if the consistency becomes clumpy or curd-like, this is often a sign of infection.
Most commonly, it’s a yeast infection but could also be a sexually transmitted disease, such as chlamydia. If there is a problem, this discharge is usually associated with other symptoms such as discomfort, pain, itching or an unpleasant smell.
While some of these descriptions may seem unpleasant, they can be helpful to identify abnormalities and medical conditions. Food eponyms can help avoid confusion so doctors know what they’re looking for during examinations or surgery.
Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Beijing, March 26 — Against the backdrop of global economic fragmentation and rising uncertainties, China reaffirmed its commitment to innovation-driven high-quality development and global cooperation at the just-concluded China Development Forum (CDF) 2025.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of CDF 2025, underscored China’s commitment to its 2025 growth target of around 5 percent, signaling strong confidence in the country’s economic prospects.
The decision reflects both China’s profound understanding of its economic conditions, and confidence in its governance capacity and future development potential, Li said, calling for the combination of more proactive and impactful macro policies with structural reforms, and voicing hope that China will continue to welcome enterprises from around the world with open arms.
The premier added that the country will safeguard free trade, and contribute to the smooth and stable operation of global industrial and supply chains.
Themed “Unleashing Development Momentum for Stable Growth of Global Economy,” the high-profile gathering held from March 23 to 24 in Beijing brought together Chinese policymakers, global business leaders, and leading international scholars to chart a course for sustainable growth amid uncertainties.
“China is open for business and China is set for growth,” said Ola Kallenius, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, on the sidelines of the event.
STABILITY AMID UNCERTAINTIES
As the theme of stability resonated throughout the forum discussions, Han Wenxiu, executive deputy director of the Office of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, provided insight into China’s economic resilience and stability to counteract global uncertainties.
“Amid rising external instability and uncertainty, China will remain firmly focused on pursuing its own development, leveraging the certainty of high-quality growth to offset external uncertainties and striving to serve as a stabilizing anchor for the global economy,” Han added.
International observers echoed confidence in China’s economic prospects. Jeffrey Sachs, renowned economist and director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, told Xinhua that China’s around-5-percent growth target is “perfectly achievable,” adding that the country is “booming in key sectors, especially digital, artificial intelligence, robotics, and this is going to propel a Chinese growth.”
In the eyes of Standard Chartered Group Chief Executive Bill Winters, China’s growth story has shifted. “It is now about transformation and unleashing new productive forces to flourish to support high-quality growth,” he said.
A PwC report released at the CDF noted that over the past two years, driven by new quality productive forces, China has demonstrated a commercial evolution path distinct from those of the traditional industrialized nations, marked by improvements in production factors, transformations in business models, and the intelligent reshaping of industrial chains.
“This has opened up new opportunities for global business investment and development in China, highlighting the new advantages of the Chinese market during the global economic transition period,” the report read.
INNOVATION AS NEW GROWTH ENGINE
Finance Minister Lan Fo’an offered concrete details about China’s supportive fiscal policies, emphasizing their role in stimulating innovation and consumption. “We’re implementing targeted measures to convert potential demand into real growth drivers,” Lan explained.
“This includes increasing fiscal support for tech innovation and providing tangible assistance to private enterprises.” He specifically highlighted plans to “accelerate the development of new quality productive forces” through strategic investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies.
Data showcased China’s progress: its global innovation index ranking rose to 11th in 2024, with 19.6 percent, 27 percent, 64 percent, and 91.5 percent year-on-year growth in semiconductor wafers, industrial robots, bullet trains, and drones respectively in early 2024.
The nation’s emphasis on innovation as a driver for high-quality growth resonated strongly throughout the forum. Siemens AG President and CEO Roland Busch pointed to China’s advances in AI and high-tech manufacturing.
“China gave the answer for where growth would come from: Growth from high tech, growth by higher efficiency, and high-quality growth,” he remarked, adding that China surprises the world with innovations like the open foundational model R-1 developed by DeepSeek.
Kallenius also praised China’s innovation-driven market. “China’s competitive advantage lies in its passion for innovation,” he said. “That is why Mercedes-Benz continues to deepen its presence in China.”
Reflecting this trend, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot emphasized the country’s emergence as a global leader in life sciences. “Today, China is home to one of AstraZeneca’s Global R&D Centres, where our researchers in Shanghai are spearheading 20 global clinical trials and advancing over 200 pipeline projects,” he said.
Prior to the forum, the British pharmaceutical giant signed a landmark 2.5-billion-U.S. dollar agreement on Friday to invest in Beijing over the next five years, the largest single investment in Beijing’s biopharmaceutical sector in recent years.
Under the agreement, AstraZeneca will establish a global strategic R&D center in Beijing, its sixth worldwide and second in China after one in Shanghai. The new center, equipped with an advanced AI and data science laboratory, will accelerate early-stage drug research and clinical development.
“Looking ahead, China will not only serve as a global innovation hub but also a core arena for setting standards and reshaping industrial chains,” the PwC report added.
OPEN COLLABORATION FOR SHARED FUTURE
From CDF 2025 in Beijing to the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2025 in south China’s Hainan Province, foreign executives reaffirmed their commitment to China as a key market for investment and collaboration: China’s complete industrial system, rich application scenarios, vast market scale, and large talent pool offer extensive collaboration opportunities for international industrial and technological innovation.
The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China said in its latest survey that 58 percent of its member firms plan to expand or maintain investments in China through 2025, while 53 percent of U.S. companies are expected to invest more in the country, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in China.
BMW AG Chairman Oliver Zipse stressed that “economic prosperity comes from openness, not protectionism,” while criticizing trade barriers. “The best response to ‘de-risking’ strategies is more cooperation, not less.”
Speaking to global business leaders attending the CDF, Lan also emphasized that China’s fiscal policy will support high-standard opening up, and that China will ensure equal treatment for all types of business entities and continue to improve the business environment.
“For global companies, China’s commitment to high-tech innovation and open collaboration makes it an indispensable partner for long-term growth,” said Busch, highlighting China’s rapid technological advancements and collaborative spirit.
Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman of Schneider Electric, said: “China is not only our second-largest worldwide market but it’s also a vital source of innovation.” For the French industrial giant, China will remain a key partner as it navigates the complexities of a rapidly changing world, he added.
While China accelerates its push toward innovation-led growth and deepens its commitment to openness, global businesses continue to see the country as a critical partner in achieving long-term economic prosperity, and as the premier put it, there is a growing need for countries to open their markets and for enterprises to share resources, in order to address challenges and pursue common prosperity.
Immigration dominated recent election campaigns in countries that include the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States.
The subject sparked particularly fierce debates over welfare. While some politicians called for more support for typically economically vulnerable immigrant populations, others argued that welfare systems are already too generous and accommodating to newcomers.
The data set reveals key insights. One striking observation is that the countries where politicians most frequently complain that immigrants are treated too generously are among the most exclusionary from a comparative perspective.
It also shows that although most welfare systems were moving towards greater inclusion up until the 2010s, since then social programs in many countries have become more inclusive in some respects but more exclusive in others.
A new data set for 22 countries
The data set, called the Immigrant Exclusion from Social Programs Index (IESPI), measures how much immigrants’ access to pensions, health care, unemployment benefits, housing benefits, social assistance and active labour market programs compares to that of native-born citizens.
The index uses 32 indicators to measure factors like whether immigrants have to have resided in the country for a certain period of time, held a specific type of residence status, or met standards of successful integration before they can access social programs.
The data covers the years 1990 to 2023 and includes information for 22 countries.
Complaints about inclusion
In the United States, President Donald Trump has voiced concerns about immigrants’ welfare access repeatedly, both during his first term and since taking office again this year.
On the other side of the North Sea, the political party that won the Dutch elections made the argument that immigrants are “pampered” a central feature of its election platform.
Ironically, all three of these countries are among the most exclusionary, according to the most recent IESPI data, as the graph below illustrates. (Note that the IESPI is organized such that a value of 0 is maximally inclusionary and 100 is maximally exclusionary.)
Inclusionary trends have ended
A second observation is that the era of social welfare systems becoming more inclusive for immigrants has ended.
From 1990 until the 2010s, most western welfare systems were removing barriers for immigrant access to social programs. But since then, levels of immigrant welfare exclusion have not changed dramatically over time.
Closer inspection shows that this picture of stability since the 2010s hides negative trends in different social programs.
On the one hand, health-care programs and active labour market policies have gradually become more inclusionary. More and more countries have been making health-care services accessible for vulnerable immigrant populations, and rolling out targeted programs to improve newcomers’ chances on the labour market.
On the other hand, social assistance policies have generally become more exclusionary over time. Many countries have intensified restrictions for recent arrivals, migrants without permanent residence status and migrants who cannot demonstrate successful integration.
Large differences in historical trajectories
When we look beyond aggregate trends, we also note very different trajectories in different countries.
In some countries (Austria, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain), social programs have become consistently more inclusionary.
Other countries (Canada, Luxembourg and Sweden) have also undergone an inclusionary development, although at a more modest pace of change.
In a third set of countries (Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway and Switzerland), policies initially became more inclusionary but this trend was halted or reversed around 2010. The social programs of three other countries (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States), finally, have consistently become more exclusionary over time.
These comparisons within the IESPI data set hopefully enable us to make sense of the frequently charged nature of discussions about immigrants’ access to social programs.
Most obviously, they show we should be cautious when listening to some of the politicians who are most critical of immigrant welfare access, like Donald Trump, Rishi Sunak and Geert Wilders.
If their arguments that exclusionary reforms in their countries are nothing but reasonable adjustments to overly generous approaches ever had any merit, that merit is quickly evaporating.
Edward Koning received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to collect the data for this project.
Mississippi’s reforms have led to significant gains in reading and math, despite the state being one of the lowest spenders per pupil in the U.S.Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images
As of 2023, the state ranks among the top 20 for fourth grade reading, a significant leap from its 49th-place ranking in 2013. This transformation was driven by evidence-based policy reforms focused on early literacy and teacher development.
The rest of the country might want to take note.
That’s because Mississippi’s success offers a proven solution to the reading literacy crisis facing many states – a clear road map for closing early literacy gaps and improving reading outcomes nationwide.
When students struggle, their academic performance declines. And that leads to lower test scores. Research shows that these declining scores are closely linked to reduced economic growth, as a less educated workforce hampers productivity and innovation.
The Mississippi approach
In 2013, Mississippi implemented a multifaceted strategy for enhancing kindergarten to third grade literacy. The Literacy-Based Promotion Act focuses on early literacy and teacher development. It includes teacher training in proven reading instruction methods and teacher coaching.
It includes provisions for reading coaches, parent communication, individual reading plans and other supportive measures. It also includes targeted support for struggling readers. Students repeat the third grade if they fail to meet reading standards.
The state also aligned its test to the NAEP, or National Assessment of Educational Progress, something which not all states do. Often referred to as “The Nation’s Report Card,” the NAEP is a nationwide assessment that measures student performance in various subjects.
Mississippi’s reforms have led to significant gains in reading and math, with fourth graders improving on national assessments.
I believe this is extremely important. That’s because early reading is a foundational skill that helps develop the ability to read at grade level by the end of third grade. It also leads to general academic success, graduating from high school prepared for college, and becoming productive adults less likely to fall into poverty.
Research by Noah Spencer, an economics doctoral student at the University of Toronto, shows that the Mississippi law boosted scores.
Students exposed to it from kindergarten to the third grade gained a 0.25 standard deviation improvement in reading scores. That is roughly equivalent to one year of academic progress in reading, according to educational benchmarks. This gain reflects significant strides in students’ literacy development over the course of a school year.
Another study has found an even greater impact attributed to grade retention in the third grade – it led to a huge increase in learning in English Language Arts by the sixth grade.
But the Mississippi law is not just about retention. Spencer found that grade retention explains only about 22% of the treatment effect. The rest is presumably due to the other components of the measure – namely, teacher training and coaching.
These changes were achieved despite Mississippi being one of the lowest spenders per pupil in the U.S., proving that strategic investments in teacher development and early literacy can yield impressive results even with limited resources.
Mississippi’s early literacy interventions show lasting impact and offer a potential solution for other regions facing similar challenges.
In 2024, only 31% of U.S. fourth grade students were proficient or above in reading, according to the NAEP, while 40% were below basic. Reading scores for fourth and eighth graders also dropped by five points compared with 2019, with averages lower than any year since 2005.
Mississippi’s literacy program provides a learning gain equal to a year of schooling. The program costs US$15 million annually – 0.2% of the state budget in 2023 – and $32 per student.
Based on typical high school graduate earnings, the average student can expect to earn an extra $1,000 per year for the rest of their life.
That is, for every dollar Mississippi spends, the state gains about $32 in additional lifetime earnings, offering substantial long-term economic benefits compared with the initial cost.
The Mississippi literacy project focuses on teaching at the right level, which focuses on assessing children’s actual learning levels and then tailoring instruction to meet them, rather than strictly following age- or grade-level curriculum.
I believe Mississippi’s progress, despite being the second-poorest state, can serve as a wake-up call.
Harry Anthony Patrinos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
At least, that’s the verdict of one nonprofit, the Center for Systemic Peace, which measures regime qualities of countries worldwide based on the competitiveness and integrity of their elections, limits to executive authority and other factors.
“The USA is no longer considered a democracy and lies at the cusp of autocracy,” the group’s 2025 report read.
It calls Donald Trump’s second inauguration following a raft of criminal indictments and convictions, combined with the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2024 granting of sweeping presidential immunity, a “presidential coup.”
Generally, only scholars pay attention to this kind of technical index. This year, however, many people are calling out the erosion of U.S. democracy.
The term “political regime” refers to either the person or people who hold power, or to a classification of government, including in a democracy.
Since the mid-1960s, when the U.S. expanded voting rights to include its Black citizens, historians and political scientists have generally classified the U.S. as having a democratic regime. That means the government holds free and fair elections, embraces universal voting rights, protects civil liberties and obeys the law.
Trump’s unprecedented use of nearly 100 executive orders in the first two months of his presidency aims to enact a vast policy agenda by decree. For comparison, President Joe Biden issued 162 executive orders over four years.
This is not what the founders had in mind: Congress is the constitutional route for policy-making. Skirting it threatens democracy, as do the issues Trump’s orders address. From attempting to deny citizenship through birthright to abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, Trump is attacking both the U.S. Constitution and Congress. His administration has even defied judges who order it to stop.
All of this challenges the rule of law – that is, the idea that everyone, including those in power, must follow the same laws.
When things get this bad, can a country recover?
Autocrats can be beaten
Based on my research, the short answer is yes – eventually.
When a political party that does not honor democratic institutions or heed critical democratic norms takes power, political scientists expect the government to shift toward autocratic rule. That means restricting civil liberties, quashing dissent and undermining the rule of law.
However, as long as a country has a robust opposition and elections that offer real opportunities for alternative parties to win office, the regime shift is not necessarily permanent.
According to the American Presidency Project at the University of California Santa Barbara, which measures presidential margins of victory by subtracting the electoral vote percentage from the popular vote percentage for each election, the average margin of victory in presidential elections between 1932 and 2000 was 25 points. Since 2000, it has been 7.8 points.
Moreover, since 1948, every time the White House changed hands after an election, it flipped parties as well, with one exception in 1988. Political scientists refer to this back-and-forth as “thermostatic shifting.” In other words, the electorate regularly sours on the status quo and aims to adjust the thermostat to another temperature – or political party.
When a party that more strongly favors democratic principles takes power, the U.S. more firmly adheres to democratic institutions and norms. This was essentially Biden’s winning pitch to voters in 2020.
The U.S. political pendulum has been singing back and forth like this since at least 2016, with Trump’s first win. I expect the oscillation to continue.
There are good reasons to believe that a permanent slide into autocracy is harder in the U.S. than in those countries.
The U.S. has a robust and wealthy network of civil society organizations, which are well versed in exercising their civil liberties. Its decentralized federalist structure is harder for any one person or party to seize. U.S. elections for example, are run by state and local governments, not the federal government. This makes its election systems more resilient than more centralized election systems.
At the moment, I see no reason to fear that the U.S. will fail to hold free and fair elections in 2026 or 2028.
For the time being, then, the U.S. is in what I call a “pendular equilibrium.” Parties trade majority control as voters react to extremism, shifting the regime from more autocratic to more democratic depending on who is in power.
The effect is a stable outcome of sorts – not a static stability but a dynamic stability. Despite the day-to-day chaos, there is balance over time in the predictable shift back and forth.
When the pendulum stops swinging
Until, that is, some other force comes along to disrupt the pattern.
This might be a force more toward fascism that restricts elections to the point of futility, as in Venezuela and Russia. Or the equilibrium could be thrown off by a democratic resurgence, in the model of Brazil or Poland.
Even just maintaining the pendular equilibrium to conserve some manner of democratic regime will require those who oppose authoritarianism to boldly insist on political leaders who value democratic principles: fair elections, voting rights, civil liberties and rule of law.
Until and unless the U.S. nurtures and elects political movements and leaders who make lasting democratic changes, I believe the country will continue to lurch back and forth in its pendulum swing.
Jennifer Victor serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of OpenSecrets, a non-partisan, non-profit. This is an unpaid position.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Exhibition exhibits
On March 25, in honor of the 95th anniversary of the Department of Descriptive Geometry and Engineering Graphics, a book exhibition entitled “Descriptive Geometry. Engineering Graphics: Milestones in History” was ceremoniously opened in the scientific and technical library of SPbGASU.
The exhibition displays the first textbooks on descriptive geometry, projects and drawings by teachers of the 19th–20th centuries, albums with drawings by the first students, scientific research by department staff, and modern textbooks and teaching aids.
“Today we have gathered in our legendary library to congratulate the staff of the oldest department of the university and pay tribute to all those talented and hardworking teachers whose contribution to the training of specialists in the construction field is invaluable. We have gathered to remember the names of those who laid the foundations of the traditions of the Russian school of civil engineers and stood at the origins of teaching the discipline “Descriptive Geometry”; those who supplemented, expanded and preserved the traditions of teaching; those who today, in the rapid time of the development of digital technologies, are engaged in this science,” Elena Romanova, head of the scientific and technical library of SPbGASU, addressed the guests of the exhibition.
Elena Gennadyevna expressed her gratitude to Elena Denisova, head of the Department of Descriptive Geometry and Engineering Graphics, for donating to the library a rare 1821 edition of L. L. Vallee’s “Treatise on the Science of Drawing,” which contains a general theory of shadows, linear perspective, a general theory of optical images, and aerial perspective used for blurred drawing.
Senior lecturer of the Department of Descriptive Geometry and Engineering Graphics Vladimir Zaikin shared his memories of outstanding scientists – Ivan Dmitrievich Sizov, Maria Fedorovna Yakovleva, Alexandra Nikolaevna Zaikina, Valentina Fominichna Ivanova. According to Vladimir Konstantinovich, of the 95 years that the department has existed, he could talk about the last fifty – he visited the lecture halls and drawing rooms when he was still a child, then studied at our university and has been working there for many years.
The department’s head Elena Denisova spoke about the department’s successes today. The department provides graphic and geometric training for all engineering, construction and architectural specialties. The scientific interests of the staff concern various aspects of the application of the academic disciplines “Descriptive Geometry”, “Engineering Graphics” and “Computer Graphics” to these areas of study.
The department uses modern teaching methods – interactive lectures, online courses, CAD systems are used: Kompas-3D, nanoCAD for creating 3D models and preparing drawings, which allows students to better understand spatial relationships and visualize complex geometric objects, and gain skills in working with modern software. Tasks are developed that require manual graphics: you cannot completely abandon manual drawing, which develops motor skills, an eye and an understanding of the principles of construction, which is critical for the formation of spatial thinking.
The main scientific areas of the department are geometric modeling, computer graphics, information modeling technologies (IMT), engineering analysis, data visualization, application of methods of descriptive geometry and engineering graphics in education, use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, etc.
Over the past three years, the department’s teachers have published more than 160 works. Students under their scientific supervision have published about 100 works. The department has three areas of the student scientific society of the Faculty of Architecture: “3D modeling in modern design” (headed by Elena Denisova), “Architecture and geometry in a sustainable world” (headed by Olga Melnikova, senior lecturer of the department), and “Computer-aided design (CAD) systems for solving construction and architectural problems” (headed by Yuliana Guryeva, associate professor of the department).
Career guidance work is carried out: master classes are held for schoolchildren: “Profession: Civil Engineer. Who builds, what builds and for whom builds”, “Not everyone is given the opportunity to live so generously – to give cities to friends as a keepsake!” The department’s teachers work in schools and collaborate with other educational institutions.
Students, under the guidance of the department’s teachers, regularly participate in competitions and olympiads at the regional, all-Russian and international levels, where they win prizes, demonstrating a high level of training and a creative approach to solving engineering problems.
The department’s teachers have written manuals and textbooks that have received high marks in competitions, and have acquired a number of patents for their inventions. Yuliana Guryeva was awarded a laureate diploma at the international exhibition and competition “Creative Spring. The Expanses of My Homeland…” for her graphic work “The Bell Tower of the Nikolsky Naval Cathedral in St. Petersburg” (from the series “St. Petersburg – the City of Naval Glory”).
“In the modern educational realities, the Department of Descriptive Geometry must actively develop in order to remain relevant and in demand. Traditional approaches need to be adapted to new technologies, labor market requirements, and the changing educational needs of students,” Elena Denisova is confident.
The department’s development areas include the introduction of new educational technologies, development and refinement of courses and disciplines that meet modern labor market requirements in close cooperation with graduating departments, encouraging students to participate in scientific conferences and competitions in geometry and computer graphics, participation in international educational and scientific projects, and student and teacher exchanges with foreign universities.
Students of SPbGASU congratulated the department on its anniversary in the form of a video message, in which they warmly thanked the teachers for their responsiveness, assistance in preparing for the Olympiads and developing professional skills.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition continued with a tour of the reading room for working with rare books, where Elena Romanova showed unique graphic works from the collection of the Scientific and Technical Library of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, made by teachers and students of previous years.
The exhibition in the reading room of the Scientific and Technical Library of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering will run until April 25.
Opening hours: Monday – Thursday from 10:00 to 18:00, Friday from 10:00 to 17:00.
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Published first in 2025 number quarterly scientific journal of the Bank of Russia “Money and Credit”. Among the topics of the issue are modeling trust in the central bank based on social media data, forecasting inflation using news texts and analysis of factors influencing inflation risks.
Trust in the central bank is one of the factors of the effectiveness of monetary policy (MP): the higher the level of trust in the central bank, the stronger its influence on inflation expectations. To assess the level of trust, survey data are usually used, which are problematic to conduct too often. Anastasia Matevosova (Moscow State University; Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences) offers use big data and builds an indicator based on sentiment analysis of VKontakte user comment texts. Such an indicator can be used with different frequencies – for example, on both weekly and annual data. Modeling on weekly data revealed that an increase in trust leads to a decrease in inflation expectations with a lag of about 2 weeks.
Text analysis using neural networks can also help in forecasting inflation. Elizaveta Volgina (Moscow State University) in her work uses To do this, information from the media news is added to standard macro variables (such as the dynamics of wages, industrial production or oil prices). The author shows that such a forecast is more accurate than a forecast without taking into account the news.
When conducting monetary policy, it is important for central banks to take into account not only the inflation forecast, but also the risks that it will be higher. With the same forecast, a situation in which the risk of high inflation is more significant requires stricter monetary policy measures. Alexandra Chudayeva (RANEPA) analyzes the factors of such inflation risks andshows, that on a yearly horizon these include an increase in wages and a decline in production, and on a monthly horizon – an increase in retail turnover and a weakening of the ruble.
You can read these and other articles from the magazine “Money and Credit” No. 1 for 2025 atwebsite magazine.
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Pioneer in regenerative engineering Professor Cato T. Laurencin, is now Professor Sir Cato T. Laurencin.
Dr. Cato T. Laurencin at the ceremony.
Laurencin is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to the field of regenerative engineering that he founded, along with groundbreaking work in orthopaedic surgery, polymer science chemistry and engineering, and musculoskeletal repair and regeneration.
Laurencin is the first surgeon in the world elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors. He earned his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, his M.D. from the Harvard Medical School, Magna Cum Laude, and his Ph.D. in Biochemical engineering/Biotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“St. Lucia is an extraordinary country, with extraordinary people,” said Laurencin. “The country has more Nobel Prize winners per capita than anywhere in the world. In being Knighted through the auspices of King Charles III, I am proud to be included among fellow Knights such as the late Sir Derek Wolcott, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
Professor Sir Cato T. Laurencin receiving the medal of the Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Lucia.
Laurencin is the Chief Executive Officer of The Cato T. Laurencin Institute for Regenerative Engineering, a cross-university Institute at UConn created in his honor. He is the University Professor and Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UConn School of Medicine. In engineering, he is professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, professor of Materials Science and Engineering and professor of Biomedical Engineering at UConn.
Sir Laurencin’s Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Lucia medals.
His research has successfully translated to and influenced technologies affecting millions of patients. His contributions to science include over 500 scientific articles, numerous patents, and he has written or edited 17 books. He received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, America’s highest honor for technological achievement, in ceremonies at the White House. In 2023 he was named Inventor of the Year by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation.
Laurencin received Knighthood on the recommendation of the Prime Minister and the Government of St. Lucia. “I’m proud that we have established an MOU between the University of Connecticut and Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia and have a number of collaborations established. I’m especially proud that my donated autobiography ‘Success is What You Leave Behind’ sits in schools and libraries throughout the country.”
Laurencin received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Grant Award, and the NSF Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Grant Award for his work in Regenerative Engineering. He has received the highest awards of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Materials Research Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineering, and the American Chemical Society, which awarded him the Priestley Medal. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers established the Cato T. Laurencin Regenerative Engineering Founder’s Award, honoring his pioneering efforts in the field.
“My father, the late Cyril Laurencin, was born in St. Lucia and was a distinguished carpenter. He asked me to promise to make a difference in the world, and to pay special attention to making a difference in the lives of St. Lucians. Receiving Knight Commander of the Order of St. Lucia shows a promise kept.”
Laurencin was born in America but also became a citizen of St. Lucia. Thus, his Knighthood is not an honorary one.
The University of Connecticut congratulates Sir Cato Thomas Laurencin.
For being “leading experts in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine,” the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) is welcoming four faculty from UConn’s College of Engineering (CoE) into its membership.
They are among 12 inductees from UConn, and 36 statewide. The new members will be introduced at the Academy’s 50th Annual Dinner on May 28.
Election to CASE is open to scientists and engineers who work or live in Connecticut based on scientific distinction achieved through significant original contributions in theory or applications, unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of applied science and technology, or both.
The 2025 CASE inductees from the CoE include: • Omer Khan, professor of electrical and computer engineering
• Ji-Cheng “JC” Zhao, dean of the College of Engineering; professor of materials science and engineering
• Guoan Zheng, Collins Aerospace Professor of Engineering Innovation in the Department of Biomedical Engineering; and director of the UConn Center for Biomedical and Bioengineering Innovation
• Xiao-Dong Zhou, Connecticut Clean Energy Fund Professor in Sustainable Energy; the Nicholas E. Madonna Chair in Sustainability; director of the Center for Clean Energy Engineering; and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering
“CASE is honored to have these outstanding scientists and engineers join us as we seek to fulfill our mission to provide evidence-based advice to inform policy and promote innovation in Connecticut,” says CASE President Amy Howell.
Brief bios of the 2025 CASE Fellows are below:
Omer Khan
Omer Khan leads the Computer Architecture Group (CAG) and serves as an associate director of the Connecticut Advanced Computing Center (CACC). His research interests include computer architectures and methods that exploit parallelism, locality, resiliency, and privacy suitable for high-performance applications, such as graph intelligence problems. He has contributed architectural advancements for futuristic massively parallel microprocessors that substantially enhance system level performance and efficiency.
Most recently, Khan and his colleagues took a hardware-architecture-algorithm approach to develop a new system architecture that helps optimize multiple goals at once, like finding the best trade-off between speed and fuel efficiency for autonomous vehicles. They propose Ordered Parallel Multi-Objective Search, or OPMOS, that exploits massive parallelism to achieve huge improvements in performance.
“OPMOS is a unique approach that brings together algorithmic optimizations and architectural insights to rapidly accelerate these computationally hard multi-objective graph intelligence problems,” Khan explains. “This means exact solutions that used to take hours to generate can be found in seconds. This allows decision-makers to have access to real-time information, leading to better decision-making in high-impact application scenarios.”
As a complementary research effort, Khan is addressing the computational complexity problem in artificial intelligence applications, such as autonomous systems, social influence, and chip design that must handle increasingly large and sparse graph-based data.
“Efficient processing of sparse graph problems is extremely challenging since the underlying computations require complex mathematical operations whose processing suffers from performance scaling challenges on existing hardware processing units,” Khan explains. Khan and his colleagues are developing parallel hardware architectures that exploit sparsity for performance to reduce computational complexity without compromising accuracy.
Prior to joining UConn, Khan spent several years in the semiconductor industry as a high-performance processor architect.
Khan has a BS in electrical and computer engineering from Michigan State University (2000) and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2009).
Ji-Cheng “JC” Zhao
Ji-Cheng “JC” Zhao is an expert on design of advanced alloys and coatings, additive manufacturing (3D printing) of alloys and composites, high-throughput materials science methodologies, and computational thermodynamics and kinetics. He previously served as a director at the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy), managing approximately $100 million in projects to develop energy-efficient and green technologies.
Before working in academia and government, Zhao was a senior materials scientist and project leader at General Electric (GE) Research Center where he invented new materials and processes, mostly for gas turbines and jet engines, leading to 48 U.S. patents.
As dean of engineering at UConn, Zhao is working to expand the College’s research footprint, launch impactful educational programs, and advance relationships with local, national, and international partners.
Zhao is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors, ASM International, the Materials Research Society, and the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society. Zhao has a BS in materials science and engineering from Central South University in Hunan, China (1985) and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Lehigh University (1995).
Guoan Zheng
Guoan Zheng is an expert on biomedical optics and instrumentation, computational imaging, microscopy, and chip-scale imaging. At UConn’s Smart Imaging Laboratory, he leads a team of researchers who are developing a new technique called Synthetic Aperture Ptycho-Endoscopy (SAPE), which achieves outstanding resolution and visibility in endoscopic images. Since its inception in 2013, the laboratory has been supported by NSF, NIH, DOE, Connecticut Innovations, and partnerships with multiple industry leaders.
Zheng is also the inventor of Fourier ptychography, a transformative microscopy technique that has become a global standard, now widely adopted across numerous laboratories worldwide. The technique is featured as a chapter in the most widely read textbook on Fourier optics.
He’s also a member of Optica and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
Zheng holds a BS in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University (2007); and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (2013).
Xiao-Dong Zhou
Xiao-Dong Zhou is passionate about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the development of advanced materials and innovative, efficient processes. He’s an expert on nonequilibrium thermodynamics, electrochemistry, thermodynamics and electrochemistry in fuel cells, electrolyzers, and batteries, and studies ways small molecules—such as oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane—can be used to create value-added commodities.
At UConn, Zhou serves as a special advisor on sustainable energies to President Radenka Maric and Vice President for Research Pamir Alpay. In this role, he provides guidance and contributes to the development of sustainable energy strategies and initiatives across the university.
Zhou currently serves as the technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, and an associate editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and the International Journal of Ceramic Engineering and Science. Since 2017, Zhou has secured more than $23 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy.
Zhou received his BS in chemical engineering from East China University of Science and Technology and his Ph.D. in ceramic engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
In 2012, CASE elected Pamir Alpay, vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship and professor of materials science and engineering to its membership. He’s among 20 engineering faculty from UConn—including the four new inductees—who are CASE members.
“We’re thrilled to have Professors Zhao, Zheng, Khan, and Zhou join our membership at the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering,” Alpay says. “This achievement is a testament to their contributions to research and innovation, and their dedication to advancing knowledge in engineering fields. Their work continues to inspire excellence within our academic community at the CoE.”
The CoE faculty are among 12 newly elected CASE members at UConn. One third of all new inductees statewide are UConn faculty. Others 2025 inductees include:
• Gerald Berkowitz, professor of horticulture, University of Connecticut College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources • Ming-Hui Chen, department head of statistics; Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences • Jie He, professor of chemistry, University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences • Guozhen Lu, professor of mathematics; director of Mathematical Sciences Research Collaboratory, University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences • Xiuling Lu, professor of pharmaceutical sciences; associate director of the Kildsig Center for Pharmaceutical Processing Research, University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy • Vijay Rathinam, professor of immunology, University of Connecticut Health Center School of Medicine • Kumar Venkitanarayanan, professor of animal science; associate dean for Research and Graduate Studies, University of Connecticut College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources • Jing Zhao, professor of chemistry, University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
UConn Engineering continues to have a strong presence in CASE membership. Khan, Zhao, Zheng, and Zhou join 16 other faculty from the College of Engineering who are already members of CASE.
CASE was chartered by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1976 to provide expert guidance on science and technology to the people and to the state of Connecticut, and to promote the application of science and technology to human welfare and economic well-being.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Press conference of BFA Int’l Science, Tech & Innovation Forum held in Hainan
Updated: March 26, 2025 20:41Xinhua
A press conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) International Science, Technology & Innovation Forum 2025 Hong Kong Conference is held in Boao, south China’s Hainan Province on March 25, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
RESTON, Va., March 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Science Applications International Corp. (NASDAQ: SAIC) has announced the launch of ReadyOne™ Foundational – the company’s commercial-grade solution for a rapidly deployable, cloud-based digital engineering ecosystem that meets the Department of Defense (DoD) Instruction 5000.97 mandate and unique mission requirements of government customers. It is now available on the AWS Marketplace to accelerate deployment and help government avoid developing capabilities that are already commercially available.
ReadyOne™ Foundational’s built-in digital thread accelerator unifies disparate data, tools and teams in real-time through a configurable, turnkey solution – enabling an out-of-the-box adoption of best practices in digital engineering. This offering grants customers access to a credentialed cloud-based environment that eliminates common DE barriers and is pre-loaded with data-models, software tools and connectors from the outset increasing mission effectiveness and saving costs over an entire lifecycle.
“As threats to national security continue advancing and evolving, digital engineering is no longer optional for our Department of Defense customers and their mission-critical programs,” said Chris Finlay, Vice President of Innovation at SAIC. “ReadyOne™ Foundational accelerates the transition from traditional, document-based engineering methods to model-based techniques with digitally connected data for a complete digital engineering system for transparent, secure collaboration.”
The platform’s built-in, tool-agnostic digital thread architecture, powered by Aras Innovator, eliminates vendor lock-in, making it a flexible and cost-effective offering when compared to traditional product lifecycle management (PLM) and digital thread solutions. Organizations can take full ownership of their tools and data by hosting ReadyOne™ Foundational in their own cloud environments, through cloud-to-cloud or on-premises delivery.
Learn more information about ReadyOne™ Foundational and how it can accelerate your organization’s digital engineering transformation here.
About SAIC SAIC is a premier Fortune 500® technology integrator focused on advancing the power of technology and innovation to serve and protect our world. Our robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, civilian and intelligence markets includes secure high-end solutions in mission IT, enterprise IT, engineering services and professional services. We integrate emerging technology, rapidly and securely, into mission critical operations that modernize and enable critical national imperatives.
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Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
One of the discussion platforms of the international conference on the development of modern education was organized at the Polytechnic University.
The conference “Education of the Future and the Future of Education” is currently taking place in different cities across the country, where important issues of Russian education development are being discussed at several discussion platforms. The meeting of the Polytechnic student body with vice-rectors Lyudmila Pankova and Maxim Pasholikov was devoted to the topic “A New Era of Higher Education: Towards Technological Leadership”.
The meeting participants discussed whether engineering education will be transformed into an innovative one through mass participation of students in research and engineering work; how the engineering education system will be integrated into science and production; touched upon the topic of developing mentoring in higher education; the use of tools for assessing and preparing graduates in accordance with the personnel requirements of the university’s partners, and much more.
Vice-Rector for Educational Activities of the University Lyudmila Pankova made a presentation on the topic of “Strategic Educational Initiatives in the SPbPU Development Program for 2025/2036.” Lyudmila Vladimirovna recalled that last week the Polytechnic University successfully defended its comprehensive development program andentered the first group of universities to receive grants from the Priority 2030 program, which is now focused on technological leadership. The Vice-Rector explained what strategic goals the university sets for itself, what strategic initiatives it proposes to achieve them, including in the field of education. For example, this is the construction of a flexible system for assessing educational results based on the individual achievements of students or students receiving several qualifications during their studies.
“The big advantage of the Polytechnic is its interdisciplinary nature,” noted Lyudmila Pankova. “When a university has many different competencies, they are well combined and a synergistic effect occurs.”
Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Communication Technologies Maxim Pasholikov spoke about a multi-level mentoring system as a tool for working with young people, focusing on a new idea related to the development of mentoring. In the year of the 60th anniversary of the Trade Union of University Students and the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Public Institute “Adapters”, Maxim Aleksandrovich proposed to restart the Association of Polytechnic Graduates, created back in 2012, to unite on its basis adapters who graduated from the university, trade union activists and student brigade fighters.
“This will be a new stage in the development of youth policy at the university,” the vice-rector believes. “While we are studying, we are constantly immersed in this environment, but after graduation, connections are lost. And we, graduates, who were on the same wavelength during our years of study, need such social communication. This could be a permanent club in which horizontal connections would develop, and people would receive new opportunities for self-realization, including employment.”
After the presentations, the participants in the discussion were able to speak out on the proposed topics and receive answers to their questions.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, March 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Aspida Life Re Ltd. (“Aspida Re”), a reinsurance company focused on providing life and annuity reinsurance solutions to companies globally, announced today the recent appointment of Elinor Friedman, FSA, MAAA to its Board of Directors (“the Board”). Ms. Friedman’s extensive product development and pricing knowledge will complement and add broader insight to Aspida Re’s board composition.
Ms. Friedman is a seasoned actuary with vast experience in the life insurance and reinsurance space. From 2013 to 2024, she served as Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson where she provided consulting services to large and mid-size insurers and reinsurers including sell-side appraisal, buy-side due diligence, product development, and pricing.
“Elinor’s deep capabilities in actuarial science, risk management, and insurance analytics, combined with her proven leadership in insurance consulting, make her a valuable addition to our board,” said David Florian, Chief Executive Officer of Aspida Re. “Her insights and operational acumen will be instrumental in helping Aspida Re continue to deliver ongoing value for our partners and clients.”
During her time as Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson, Ms. Friedman also served as Life Division Leader and Sales and Practice Leader for the Americas leadership team for the Insurance Consulting and Technology (ICT) line of business. Prior to joining the firm, she served as Product Actuary at General American Life Insurance Company, coordinating life product development and pricing, and as Assistant Actuary at RGA/Swiss Financial Group, focused on reinsurance transactions, actuarial pricing, and risk analysis.
“I am excited to join Aspida Re’s board and contribute to the company’s mission of providing innovative and secure reinsurance solutions,” said Elinor Friedman. “Aspida Re’s focus on risk management excellence and forward-thinking strategies aligns with my experience in actuarial science and insurance consulting. I look forward to leveraging my background to support Aspida Re’s growth, helping to refine reinsurance structures and strengthen partnerships that drive long-term financial security.”
Ms. Friedman received her Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from Concordia University (with distinction) and her Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from the University of Ottawa (magna cum laude). She is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). Ms. Friedman is also active in the industry, having previously served as Chair of the Society of Actuaries Product Development Section Council and on the planning committee for several industry meetings. She has been a frequent speaker, lending her knowledge and expertise to the industry.
About Aspida Re Aspida Life Re Ltd (“Aspida Re”), a Bermuda-based reinsurance platform, is focused on providing efficient and secure life and annuity reinsurance solutions to its global clients. Aspida Re seeks to be a trusted partner in its clients’ long-term financial growth by delivering creative, customized solutions while driving business by doing good for the communities it serves. Aspida Re is part of Aspida Holdings Ltd, with over $21bn in total assets as of December 31, 2024. A subsidiary of Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) acts as the dedicated investment manager, capital solutions and corporate development partner to Aspida Re. For more information on Aspida Re, please visit www.aspidare.bm or follow them on LinkedIn.
Created in December 1999, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is the designated focal point in the United Nations system for the coordination of efforts to reduce disasters and to ensure synergies among the disaster reduction activities of the United Nations and regional organizations and activities in both developed and less developed countries. Led by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction (SRSG), UNDRR has over 150 staff located in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and in regional offices. Specifically, UNDRR guides, monitors, analyses and reports on progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, supports regional and national implementation of the Framework and catalyses action and increases global awareness to reduce disaster risk working with U.N. Member States and a broad range of partners and stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector, parliamentarians and the science and technology community.
The internship is for a maximum period of 6 months. The internship is UNPAID and full-time, in -person. The modality can be handled flexibly. Interns work five days per week under the supervision of the Website Officer in the Content and Channels team. This internship position is located in the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in Bonn, Germany. The successful candidate will join three other colleagues from the Content and Channels team on the Bonn UN Campus.
The Intern will:
Perform Internet-based research to identify disaster risk reduction (DRR) content and sources for publication on PreventionWeb.net in English (other languages, if applicable) to extend PreventionWeb’s coverage of country/region, thematic and hazard sections.
Enter relevant DRR documents, events, jobs, news and policy into the PreventionWeb’s Drupal content management system for publication on the website (keyword selection, abstract writing in English [other languages, if applicable], and web formatting).
Validate and enter relevant DRR source organizations and assist in maintaining their DRR organization profiles.
Assist in responding to PreventionWeb user comments and requests by sending appropriate communication and assisting in user experience research activities.
Undertake quality control of information as necessary, including analysis of gaps and targeted research.
Contribute to the improvement and development of the PreventionWeb editorial guidelines.
Identify content for promotion on social media and share it during the dedicated weekly meetings.
Assist in preparing social media content by drafting texts and short video scripts and designing cards.
Assist in reviewing social media and web analytics to identify and optimize performance of content.
Perform online research on topics that may be of interest for various purposes such as social media promotion, presentations and briefs.
Store key pieces of information and data on Zotero.
Support, and participate in, other information management related tasks and projects matching academic background.
Qualifications/special skills
To qualify for an internship with the United Nations, applicants must meet one of the following requirements:
Be enrolled in or have completed the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum Bachelor’s level or equivalent).
Be enrolled in or have completed a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent or higher such as Master’s degree or equivalent, Ph.D. or postgraduate degree).
Applicants to the UN Internship Programme are not required to have professional work experience. However, a field of study that is closely related to the type of internship that you are applying for is required.
Be computer literate in standard software applications.
Have strong internet research skills.
Knowledge of basic HTML and photo, audio or video editing a plus.
Interest in disaster risk reduction issues.
Have a demonstrated keen interest in the work of the United Nations and have a personal commitment to the ideals of the Charter.
Have a demonstrated ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds and beliefs, which include willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views.
Applicants must be a student in the final year of the first university degree (bachelor or equivalent), Master’s or Ph.D. Programme or equivalent, or have completed a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PH.D. Programme.
Do you meet any of the above criteria? If yes, please indicate which one and attach proof to the application. Please note that you will have to provide an official certificate at a later stage.
Languages
English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. Fluency in spoken and writtten English is required for this internship. Knowledge of French or Spanish is an advantage.
Additional Information
Due to the high volume of applications received, only successful candidates will be contacted
Intern Specific text
Interns are not financially remunerated by the United Nations. Costs and arrangements for travel, visas, accommodation and living expenses are the responsibility of interns or their sponsoring institutions. Interns who are not citizens or permanent residents of the country where the internship is undertaken, may be required to obtain the appropriate visa and work/employment authorization. Successful candidates should discuss their specific visa requirements before accepting the internship offer.
No Fee
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.
Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb’s powerful gaze For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow. In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Neptune was the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system. “Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity,” said lead author Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester. “It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me.” The data was obtained in June 2023 using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph. In addition to the image of the planet, astronomers obtained a spectrum to characterize the composition and measure the temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere (the ionosphere). For the first time, they found an extremely prominent emission line signifying the presence of the trihydrogen cation (H3+), which can be created in auroras. In the Webb images of Neptune, the glowing aurora appears as splotches represented in cyan.
“H3+ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus — of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available,” explained Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Webb interdisciplinary scientist and leader of the Guaranteed Time Observation program for the Solar System in which the data were obtained. “Only with a machine like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation.” The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn. Instead of being confined to the planet’s northern and southern poles, Neptune’s auroras are located at the planet’s geographic mid-latitudes — think where South America is located on Earth. This is due to the strange nature of Neptune’s magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet’s rotation axis. Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet’s atmosphere, Neptune’s auroras are far from its rotational poles. The ground-breaking detection of Neptune’s auroras will help us understand how Neptune’s magnetic field interacts with particles that stream out from the Sun to the distant reaches of our solar system, a totally new window in ice giant atmospheric science. From the Webb observations, the team also measured the temperature of the top of Neptune’s atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2’s flyby. The results hint at why Neptune’s auroras remained hidden from astronomers for so long. “I was astonished — Neptune’s upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees,” Melin said. “In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989.” Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune’s auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2. A substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras. This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune’s auroras have remained undetected for so long. The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.Equipped with these new findings, astronomers now hope to study Neptune with Webb over a full solar cycle, an 11-year period of activity driven by the Sun’s magnetic field. Results could provide insights into the origin of Neptune’s bizarre magnetic field, and even explain why it’s so tilted. “As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras,” added Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University, co-author on the paper. “This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets.” These observations, led by Fletcher, were taken as part of Hammel’s Guaranteed Time Observation program 1249. The team’s results have been published in Nature Astronomy. The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Downloads Click any image to open a larger version. View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute. Read the research results published in Nature Astronomy.
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.govNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Hannah Braun- hbraun@stsci.eduSpace Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.eduSpace Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Henrik Melin (Northumbria University)
View more: Webb images of Neptune Watch: Visualization of Neptune’s tilted magnetic axis Learn more : about Neptune More Webb News More Webb Images Webb Science Themes Webb Mission Page
About Neptune About the Solar System What is the Webb Telescope? SpacePlace for Kids En Español Ciencia de la NASA NASA en español Space Place para niños
Headline: Thales reorganises its support capabilities to enhance mission readiness of the French Army in high-intensity conflicts
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The French defence ministry’s integrated structure for through-life support of land forces equipment (SIMMT1) has awarded Thales the ABSOLU2 operational support and logistics contract.
In terms of its scale and format, the ten-year contract is the first of its kind for the French armed forces and will ultimately consolidate some 30 separate support contracts for land-based equipment in service with the French Army, Navy and Air & Space Force.
This flagship agreement addresses the need to prepare the forces for high-intensity conflicts, while helping to promote sustainable resource management.
ABSOLU will consolidate some 30 separate maintenance contracts into a single agreement to simplify contract management and significantly improve operational performance. Its shared project management model will shorten repair turnaround times to increase equipment availability, as well as expanding the re-use of components and raw materials to support the development of a circular economy.
Under the terms of this single framework contract for maintenance services, Thales also undertakes to double its equipment handling capacity in the event of a high-intensity conflict. Until now, SIMMT has awarded a separate maintenance contract for each platform.
The pioneering new format will revolutionise the strategic partnership between Thales and the French forces and deliver significant efficiency gains for the end customer. To guarantee this level of service, the Group has put new processes in place and developed a comprehensive roadmap for the ramp-up of its support delivery capacity:
creation of a joint management platform for shorter decision and repair cycles
inventory consolidation and constitution of reserve stocks in two distinct locations
use of data science for continuous monitoring of support delivery performance, predictive material and resource planning, and proactive decision-making in coordination with government customers.
The shift towards a circular economy is another important aspect of the ABSOLU contract. Thales is developing new ways of re-using materials and components to extend equipment lifetimes and enhance mission readiness, especially in high-intensity conflicts where equipment takes a heavy toll. As part of this approach, critical components (circuit boards, electronic equipment) and raw materials will also be sorted and recycled to help address environmental issues and ease supply chain tensions.
“SIMMT will leverage Thales’s expertise and agility to support deployed forces more effectively than ever before. The new contract includes an undertaking by Thales to reduce repair times by 30% and will significantly increase the operational readiness of the equipment in service with the armed forces,” said Christophe Salomon, Executive Vice-President, Secure Communications and Information Systems, Thales.
The initial scope of the ABSOLU contract includes maintenance of PR4G fourth-generation radio sets, MELCHIOR long-range HF communication systems and ground stations developed under the ASTRIDE3 2 programme, all of which enable the French armed forces to command expeditionary forces autonomously and act as a framework nation in coalition operations. Ultimately, the contract will encompass all SIMMT maintenance programmes for Thales equipment.
1SIMMT: Integrated structure for through-life support of land forces equipment
2ABSOLU: End-to-end adaptation of operational support and harmonised logistics for Thales land-based systems
3ASTRIDE: Access via satellite and radio transmissions to battlespace area network and intranet
About Thales
Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.
The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies.
Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On March 25, 2025, the next meeting of the Academic Council of the State University of Management was held.
Traditionally, we started with the congratulatory part. Rector Vladimir Stroyev presented letters of gratitude from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for their contribution to the development of practice-oriented education, the development of the federation within the framework of the “Service Learning” program to Vice-Rector Dmitry Bryukhanov and Associate Professor of the Department of Management in International Business and Tourism Industry Svetlana Grishaeva.
Vladimir Vitalyevich also congratulated the birthday boys of the month and thanked Elena Shtyreva, an employee of the Institute of Distance Education of the State University of Management, for 55 years of continuous work at the State University of Management.
“I also want to join in the congratulations and say “thank you” on behalf of all the institute’s employees for their daily work and contribution to the development of the institute. I know where she gets this character from, her grandfather was the deputy commander of Vasily Chapaev’s division,” Sergei Lenshin, director of the Fine Arts Department of the State University of Management, congratulated Elena Arkadyevna.
After the completion of the formal part, those gathered moved on to considering the issues on the agenda.
Deputy Director of the Department of Academic Policy and Implementation of Educational Programs Olga Zhuravleva presented a summary report on the self-assessment of the main areas of the university’s activities for 2024.
“For the first time, we worked on the report together with the Center for Prospective Development, which allowed us to better present the overall picture. The indicators have mostly increased and are impressive. The University is successfully developing in most indicators. However, there are also growth points and challenges of modern society that we need to work with more actively,” Olga Zhuravleva noted.
Director of the Center for Prospective Development Tatyana Gordeeva spoke about the results of the implementation of the State University of Management Development Program for 2024.
“2024 has become a fundamental year in the formation of the organizational foundations of the development program. At the same time, today we are already working on its implementation in the context of the emerging new system of higher education. What it will be like is still unknown, but we must keep this in mind. In addition, there are risks of reducing off-budget admission to humanitarian programs, which are key for the State University of Management today. Therefore, today it is important to focus on the effective implementation of the development tasks that we have defined for ourselves in order to form the necessary reserve for participation in new national projects and the implementation of our ambitious goals,” Tatyana Gordeeva emphasized.
Vladimir Stroev noted the importance of not only taking into account indicators in areas, but also making proposals for their improvement, which he expects from every employee.
“The issue of the development program is not simple, it is connected with many indicators that are used in different systems and different issues. And all our reports must be treated responsibly, not only noting positive results, but also expressing criticism in case of their failure. These data are a reason to think about what we are doing now and what will happen to us tomorrow. It would be good not just to fulfill the indicators, but also to exceed them, or be close to this,” concluded Vladimir Vitalyevich.
Director of the Institute of Economics and Finance Galina Sorokina reported on the results of the institute’s work for 2024.
“The institute has shown growth in almost all areas, so it is especially pleasant to make a report. The number of not only admitted students has grown, but also those who transferred from other universities. The number of foreign students has also grown, with Vietnamese students predominating. The number of educational programs implemented by the institute is also growing. A program on behavioral economics is being developed, which will be carried out jointly with the Central Bank and Rosfinmonitoring,” Galina Petrovna noted.
Vice-Rector Pavel Pavlovsky informed those gathered about the implementation of the Youth Policy Strategy at the State University of Management.
“The State University of Management is undoubtedly one of the leading universities in the implementation of youth policy. We became the first university in Moscow for educational work, and in Russia we took 3rd place among universities with a population of 5 to 10 thousand people. In 2024, 47 federal projects were held on the basis of the State University of Management. This year, we initiated the All-Russian student competition “Family History. Immortal Memory”, expanded the geography of the All-Russian project “Course for Business and Entrepreneurship” that we are implementing, which will be held not only in the International Children’s Center “Artek” and the All-Russian Children’s Center “Ocean”, but also in the All-Russian Children’s Centers “Smena” and “Orlyonok”. And, of course, the All-Russian KVN School, “University Shifts” and other important events await us,” Pavel Vladimirovich shared.
Vice-Rector Dmitry Bryukhanov proposed creating a Preparatory Department for Foreign Citizens, which was unanimously supported by the council members.
At the end of the meeting, Vladimir Stroyev called on those gathered to prepare not only for the 2025 admissions campaign, but also to think about admissions in 2026 and make their proposals.
“This year, the admission campaign is still under the old system, but next year a new model will be adopted, and we must be ready. It is time to prepare proposals for our areas in a given situation, including in the event of a stressful situation. We must have specific solutions for each issue,” the rector of the State University of Management concluded.
In addition, the meeting discussed the nomination of GUU employees to participate in the All-Russian competition “Golden Names of Higher Education”, approval of new DPO programs, tuition fees and other work issues.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 03/26/2025
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
TORONTO, March 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ/TSX: BITF), a global Bitcoin and vertically integrated data center company, today announced that it has appointed James Bond as Senior Vice President of High-Performance Computing (“HPC”).
Mr. Bond is a subject matter expert in HPC/AI with a proven record of launching new cloud and service provider offerings for large scale data centers across the U.S. He has over 20 years’ experience in public sector solution architecture and IT infrastructure design and implementation, including 15 years at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (“HPE”) where he most recently led their North America HPC/AI infrastructure platforms category. Under his leadership, the business grew to $2 billion in 2024, representing annual growth of 160%. At HPE North America, Mr. Bond was responsible for all HPC/AI go-to-market activities including the creation of new customer offerings, designing sales and pricing programs, managing partners, including NVIDIA, Intel and others, and managing net new logo sales and business development teams.
Prior to HPE, Mr. Bond led all product development, engineering, marketing, operations, and pre-sales business development for Apptix, the largest (at the time) Application Service Provider for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Unified Communications. Prior to Apptix, Mr. Bond served as the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of IceWEB, where he created one of the first fully automated software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud offerings, before cloud and SaaS terms were coined.
Mr. Bond is also the author of “The Enterprise Cloud” and a keynote speaker at industry events nation-wide, covering topics, such as the benefits of on-premise and hybrid cloud, AI/GenAI use cases, and how to build and deploy AI infrastructure including GPUs, HPC storage, and power/cooling specifically tuned for AI workloads. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer and Information Science from the University of Maryland.
CEO Ben Gagnon stated, “We are thrilled to welcome James into this critically important role for Bitfarms. James, and the team he builds around him, will spearhead the development and implementation of our long-term HPC/AI strategy. With our Pennsylvania pipeline of 1.1GW of secured power, we are in a strong position to develop an HPC/AI business geared for scale in the U.S. James’ impressive track record of implementing HPC solutions at scale and driving exponential growth for HPE’s HPC business makes him the ideal candidate to lead this new growth chapter at Bitfarms.”
James Bond stated, “I am excited to join the talented team at Bitfarms at such a pivotal time in their growth trajectory. I look forward to leveraging their premium Pennsylvania properties, existing data centers, and power capacity to deploy a world-class high-performance computing infrastructure to host state-of-the-art artificial intelligence solutions for future customers.”
About Bitfarms Ltd.
Founded in 2017, Bitfarms is a global Bitcoin and vertically integrated data center company that sells its computational power to one or more mining pools from which it receives payment in Bitcoin. Bitfarms develops, owns, and operates vertically integrated mining facilities with in-house management and company-owned electrical engineering, installation service, and multiple onsite technical repair centers.
Bitfarms currently has 15 operating Bitcoin data centers in four countries: the United States, Canada, Paraguay, and Argentina. Powered predominantly by environmentally friendly hydro-electric and long-term power contracts, Bitfarms is committed to using sustainable and often underutilized energy infrastructure.
To learn more about Bitfarms’ events, developments, and online communities:
HPC/AI = High Performance Computing / Artificial Intelligence
GW = Gigawatt
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains certain “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking information”) that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release and are covered by safe harbors under Canadian and United States securities laws. The statements and information in this release regarding the ability to enhance the business of the Company through adding additional human resources to HPC/AI strategies, opportunities relating to the potential of the Company’s data centers for HPC/AI opportunities, the merits and ability to secure long-term contracts associated with HPC/AI customers, the North American energy and compute infrastructure strategy, projected growth, target hashrate, and other statements regarding future growth, plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking information. Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as “expects”, or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, “plans”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “forecasts”, “estimates”, “prospects”, “believes” or “intends” or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results “may” or “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information.
This forward-looking information is based on assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time they were made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks relating to: the anticipated benefits of the rebalancing of operations to North America and the North American energy and compute infrastructure strategy may not be realized; an inability to apply the Company’s data centers to HPC/AI opportunities on a profitable basis; a failure to secure long-term contracts associated with HPC/AI customers on terms which are economic or at all; the construction and operation of the Company’s facilities may not occur as currently planned, or at all; expansion may not materialize as currently anticipated, or at all; the digital currency market; the ability to successfully mine digital currency; revenue may not increase as currently anticipated, or at all; it may not be possible to profitably liquidate the current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on operations; an increase in network difficulty may have a significant negative impact on operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; the anticipated growth and sustainability of hydroelectricity for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining in the applicable jurisdictions; the inability to maintain reliable and economical sources of power for the Company to operate cryptocurrency mining assets; the risks of an increase in the Company’s electricity costs, cost of natural gas, changes in currency exchange rates, energy curtailment or regulatory changes in the energy regimes in the jurisdictions in which the Company operates and the adverse impact on the Company’s profitability; future capital needs and the ability to complete current and future financings, including Bitfarms’ ability to utilize an at-the-market offering program ( “ATM Program”) and the prices at which securities may be sold in such ATM Program, as well as capital market conditions in general; share dilution resulting from an ATM Program and from other equity issuances; the risk that a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting could result in a misstatement of the Company’s financial position that may lead to a material misstatement of the annual or interim consolidated financial statements if not prevented or detected on a timely basis; any regulations or laws that will prevent Bitfarms from operating its business; historical prices of digital currencies and the ability to mine digital currencies that will be consistent with historical prices; and the adoption or expansion of any regulation or law that will prevent Bitfarms from operating its business, or make it more costly to do so. For further information concerning these and other risks and uncertainties, refer to the Company’s filings onwww.sedarplus.ca(which are also available on the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission atwww.sec.gov), including the restated MD&A for the year-ended December 31, 2023, filed on December 9, 2024. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including factors that are currently unknown to or deemed immaterial by the Company. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking information other than as required by law.Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, or any other securities exchange or regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Investor Relations Contacts:
Tracy Krumme SVP, Head of IR & Corp. Comms. +1 786-671-5638 tkrumme@bitfarms.com
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
The final stage of the Polytechnic Olympiad took place on March 23. On this day, more than one hundred schoolchildren took part in the in-person round, which took place simultaneously at three educational sites – at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, at the AMTEK Lyceum (Cherepovets), and at the specialized educational and scientific center of the North Caucasus Federal University (Stavropol).
The Polytechnic Olympiad has been held since 2010. Over the years, it has become a platform for testing the knowledge and skills of thousands of students in subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, physics and computer science. The Olympiad has long established itself as one of the main competitions among high school students seeking to connect their lives with technical professions. However, in 2025, the concept of the event underwent significant changes. Polytechnic, being one of the leading engineering universities in the country, decided to focus on engineering sciences. This is due to the desire to prepare future engineers to solve real production problems that they will face after graduation.
At the selection stage, the participants received an unusual task – they had to pass an interview at PolyTechCorp. To get to the final, the guys had to demonstrate knowledge in various areas of modern engineering. They researched the properties of complex materials, studied the features of modern alloys and composite materials, understood the operation of circuits and circuits, analyzed their characteristics and looked for optimal solutions. One of the tasks was the design of mechanisms and calculation of motion trajectories, which allowed the participants to immerse themselves in the real atmosphere of an engineer’s work.
The finalists have already become part of a large engineering team, where they faced specific tasks similar to those that real engineers solve when creating and manufacturing products. One of the key tasks was to detect errors in the interns’ drawings. This allowed them not only to test their theoretical knowledge, but also to develop practical skills in analyzing and finding solutions under limited time.
The tasks of the final stage tested not only the level of theoretical preparation of schoolchildren, but also the ability to apply the acquired knowledge in practice. That is why the organizers allowed the participants to use any available sources of information, which made the competition even closer to real engineering activities.
The Olympiad tasks seemed difficult but interesting to me. It was exciting to try myself in the role of a real engineer and take part in the production stages. Thanks to this experience, I feel more confident in technical disciplines and understand where I want to move on, – shared his impressions a participant in the final stage.
The results of the Olympiad will be known in April. The winners and prize winners will be invited to a ceremonial award ceremony, where they will receive gifts and diplomas. A prize place in the Olympiad allows schoolchildren to receive 10 additional points when entering the Polytechnic University, which significantly increases the chances of successful enrollment.
We are glad to see how the children show interest in engineering. Our goal is to create conditions in which schoolchildren can apply their knowledge in practice and feel like real professionals. It is important that the Olympiad tasks are based on real engineering problems that students will face in the future. Such events help to form a new generation of engineers ready for the challenges of the modern world, – noted the organizer of the Polytechnic Olympiad Evgeniya Lyzlova.
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Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
In 2025, the Natural Language Laboratory of the National Research University Higher School of Economics — St. Petersburg, under the leadership of Dmitry Ryumin, a candidate of technical sciences, will develop technologies that will allow AI not only to understand words, but also to recognize emotions, gestures, and personal characteristics of a person. Initially, the department focused exclusively on the analysis of text data. However, according to Dmitry Ryumin, now only one modality is of little interest to anyone. “Look at the current developments — everyone wants to record something with their voice, and upload a picture, and analyze a video, and work with text,” the scientist comments.
Dmitry Ryumin came to the HSE in St. Petersburg from the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he holds the position of senior research fellow at the Laboratory of Speech and Multimodal Interfaces. “I was invited for the SP4 project (strategic projects), and then offered to head the Natural Language Laboratory. Today, ten people work in the laboratory – from undergraduate students to candidates of science. I would like to expand the team to 20-30 people, so that the laboratory could be divided into related groups. For example, one group deals with avatars, another – with emotions, and then they can be combined to create emotional avatars,” the head shares his plans.
Why do neural networks need emotions?
Under the leadership of Dmitry Ryumin, the HSE-St. Petersburg laboratory will focus on several promising areas related to multimodal technologies.
“Imagine a system that simultaneously analyzes a person’s voice, facial expressions, and gestures. Assessing a person’s personal qualities and recognizing emotions can be useful, for example, when hiring,” the scientist explains. The technology allows determining how well a job seeker fits the job. “We record an interview with a candidate and analyze not only the content of the answers, but also how they speak, what emotions they show, how they gesture. This gives a more complete picture of a person. For example, openness, sociability, and resistance to stress are important for a manager. The system can analyze whether a candidate’s voice trembles, how clearly they express their thoughts, and provide a description to help HR in recruiting personnel,” comments Dmitry Ryumin.
Another promising area is personalized advertising. The neural network will be able to evaluate the user’s emotional state and tailor contextual ads to him. If he is sad, it will show one type of content, if he is happy, another.
Emotional avatar technologies will find application in virtual spaces and conferences. “Last year, large international conferences created virtual spaces where participants who could not come physically entered virtual rooms through their avatars. If these avatars are made more emotional, with realistic facial expressions and gestures, the interaction experience will be much better,” the scientist notes. There is also an entertainment direction – movement transfer. “Imagine: I upload a short video in which I am simply in a room and make ordinary movements. The system analyzes and creates a digital model of me. Then I upload another video, where, for example, a professional dancer performs a break dance. The technology replaces the dancer with me, and the result is a realistic video where I masterfully dance a break dance. Similar technologies are actively developing around the world. Large research centers and companies offer various approaches to solving this problem,” explains Dmitry Ryumin.
There is potential for using multimodal artificial intelligence in the field of psychological support. “We can try to recognize not only short-term emotions, but also long-term conditions, such as anxiety disorders, emotional burnout, or cognitive impairment. Of course, there are ethical issues and problems with obtaining data for training systems, but the direction is very promising,” says Dmitry Ryumin.
Another area of development is voice assistants for smart homes. According to the scientist, bimodal recognition is most relevant in this case, since many people would prefer to maintain the privacy of their living space and would not want to connect cameras. “The analysis will be carried out mainly based on speech, which we can convert into text. This approach allows us to work with two modalities simultaneously. I have several voice assistants installed at home. And I regularly encounter a problem: the system does not always correctly interpret speech commands. Sometimes, in one minute, the assistant can change its “mood” or manner of response several times, which, frankly speaking, is irritating,” the head of the laboratory summarizes.
The task of researchers who train large language and generative models is to make the decision-making process of a neural network transparent. According to the head of the laboratory, explainable artificial intelligence is a direction that has been actively developing in recent years.
By receiving a decoding of the model’s “train of thought”, any professional can critically evaluate the result obtained: agree with something, question something. This creates an opportunity for feedback and objectivity in decision-making.
How to teach a neural network to recognize emotions?
Modern research into multimodal models requires powerful technology, cross-disciplinary specialists and large amounts of data.
Computing base. Dmitry Ryumin has been working with neural networks for more than eight years. According to him, the main emphasis used to be on RAM and the processor, but today the central role is played by graphic accelerators (GPU). The power and number of available video cards directly determine the speed of training neural network models, the number of possible experiments and the volume of processed data.
“Therefore, it is important not only to conduct research, but also to develop the computing base. For example, supercomputer of the Higher School of Economics we see how these resources affect the quality of scientific experiments. It is especially valuable to involve students, starting from the undergraduate level, in working with such systems — to teach them how to interact with high-performance computing clusters, to give them the opportunity to train models of varying complexity. This creates a continuous educational chain: students who have mastered working with advanced equipment can subsequently be involved in research work in laboratories.”
Working with databases. Teaching large language models to recognize and reproduce emotions is a complex, multi-stage process. And neural networks are now taking part in it. For example, open AIs help automate data collection and annotation: they quickly collect texts with a given emotional coloring. “This radically reduces labor costs compared to traditional manual tagging, when you had to hire people for painstaking work. A general trend is noticeable: many research teams are trying to adapt models to work with emotions. Despite the fact that such attempts are not yet ideal and the models continue to make mistakes, the direction is actively developing,” says Dmitry Ryumin.
Cross-disciplinary research. Modern research in the field of multimodal models involves interdisciplinarity. Thus, Dmitry Ryumin is now launching a joint project within the framework of the “Fundamental Research Program” with Laboratory of Social and Cognitive Informatics in modeling cognitive and affective processes and human states. “By combining our departments and laboratories, we are creating a strong interdisciplinary platform for the development of affective technologies. Such cooperation is extremely valuable: our fellow sociologists, although not specializing directly in training neural network models, including large language and generative models, bring deep theoretical expertise. Their knowledge becomes a fundamental basis for training our models,” says the head of the Natural Language Laboratory.
The Natural Language Laboratory welcomes undergraduate and graduate students who are knowledgeable in programming, linguistics, psychology, and sociology.
Natural Language Laboratory is an interdisciplinary researcher in machine learning and natural language processing, studying fundamental properties of language, computation, and learning that can contribute to a better understanding of language in general.
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Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
Modern education goes far beyond school lessons. Museums, cultural centers and scientific sites offer many exciting programs that help children develop creativity, interest in science, history, literature and art. The best educational programs for children in Moscow in a variety of areas are in the mos.ru article.
Art: developing visual acuity and creative potential
Museums and art studios actively support interest in fine arts from an early age. In classes in the art studio “Classics” of the Museum of Moscow Children will get acquainted with the history of world art – from cave painting to modern street art. Each lesson includes a theoretical part and a practical master class – a real excursion into art history, understandable to a child.
The State A.S. Pushkin Museum has prepared regular classes for children aged six to eight years from the series “Artist’s Studio. Cities and Crafts”. Participants will learn about the history of folk toys and Russian crafts, and will learn techniques of traditional painting and sculpting applied art objects. On the course “Fairy tale around us” Children aged five or six will discuss famous fairy tales and, under the guidance of an artist, draw magical animals.
History: Exploring the Past with Interactive Programs
Historical programs of Moscow museums provide children with a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the past and learn more about the culture and life of different eras. The Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve hosts several interactive classes for budding historians: “Introduction to Tsaritsyn” (6 ), “Catherine II” (3 ), “Once upon a time” (3) Each of them, in a theatrical form, immerses even the youngest guests in the history of the country.
The Museum of Moscow is open for family fun Exhibition “History of Moscow” with an amazing museum collection: archaeological finds, ancient clothing, weapons, household items, old books and other authentic monuments of the past.
The Moscow Museum of Archaeology has organized a program for family leisure. Course “Entertaining Archeology” will tell about the history of the development of medieval Moscow. For lovers of practical classes, a “Archaeological Workshop” program. Everyone can feel like a real archaeologist and examine authentic objects from different eras.
Science: Understanding the world through experimentation and research
Studying natural sciences and technology is becoming a priority for many schoolchildren. Moscow museums and educational centers pay special attention to developing and maintaining interest through exciting experiments. The Darwin Museum has cycle “Life under the microscope”– children explore the microworld, study DNA, insect jaws and life in a drop of water.
Nature lovers, such as bird watchers, can attend an interactive ecology class “Riddles of Moscow Birds”The children will learn whether birds can nest on concrete poles, how birds live in the capital, and much more.
Literature: love of reading and the Russian language
City libraries offer exciting formats that are sure to spark children’s interest in reading. A renewed club is starting work in Zelenograd Administrative Okrug on the formation of a reading culture “Chitalkin”. On weekends, children aged five to six can pretend to be librarians, writers, literary critics, illustrators and readers at the Children’s Book Playground.
Immersive readings await children in SAO “Visiting the Book Fairy”. During the lesson, you will be able to depict your impressions and emotions on paper to the sounds of classical music. Children aged seven to 10 years old living in the southwest of the capital are invited to the meeting to the Book Laboratory club. They will hear excerpts from different works, take part in discussions and will be able to take the book home.
In the library-reading room named after I.S. Turgenev, as part of the All-Russian Children’s Book Week, which runs from March 22 to 30, there will be Master class “Read – sculpt – play”. And in the North-West Administrative District in library #244 Young guests will be able to meet writers, illustrators and publishers, attend master classes on creating book miniatures, images and bookmarks, take part in literary readings “Bedtime Stories” and do much more.
Anyone over the age of seven has a unique opportunity to practice oratory at the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin. As part of cycle “The Art of Speech” Teacher and theater and film actress Ulyana Chilindina will help improve articulation, eliminate accent, and also master the basics of speech improvisation.
Music: developing musical ear and taste
Music is an integral part of development, Moscow concert halls and cultural centers provide children with the opportunity to get acquainted with the classics and the work of modern performers. For example, the Museum of Moscow offers program “World Music” for children aged six to 11. Young listeners will explore the music of different countries and nations, gain experience playing musical instruments and engage in rhythmic tasks together with their parents.
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Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
For the first time, the Tretyakov Gallery site in Pavilion No. 1 “Central” at VDNKh will join the annual educational event “Total Dictation”.
The country’s main exhibition has been providing venues for this event for several years now. Traditionally, the dictation can also be written in the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman pavilion and the Cosmonautics and Aviation center. Participants must register, and to enter the sites you must present a passport or other identification document.
This year, the author of the text, consisting of four parts, is writer and screenwriter Marina Moskvina. It will be dictated in different time zones on April 5 at city venues and as part of an online marathon. The broadcast will take place from the federal territory of Sirius, which was chosen as the capital of the Total Dictation campaign in 2025.
At VDNKh, the dictation will be conducted at 2:00 pm by playwright, writer, and presenter Valery Pecheikin, science popularizer, journalist Grigory Tarasevich, and a representative of one of the Moscow theater workshops.
50 people will take part in the event at the site in Pavilion No. 1 “Central”, 250 people at the “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” pavilion, and 350 people at the “Cosmonautics and Aviation” center.
Total Dictation is an annual educational event for everyone, the purpose of which is to test knowledge of the Russian language and show the importance of literate speech for each person. A unique text is created every year by famous writers. Anyone can participate in the event. The first event “Total Dictation” took place on March 11, 2004.
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The world has been turned on its head and Germany’s economy is stagnating. But in times of geopolitical tensions, a strong German economy is critically important for an autonomous Europe. Public investment will rise sharply now that the special funds have been adopted. While this will unleash positive growth effects, it won’t be enough to significantly expand the economy over a medium to long-term horizon. The German economy itself needs to get match fit to compete internationally – by becoming more agile, more digitalised and more innovative. To achieve this, it is also going to require a great deal more private investment, and that means mobilising vast swathes of private capital. A strong European financial ecosystem is critically important for an autonomous Europe that can be relied on in turbulent geopolitical times.
In this context, “autonomous” means a European real economy capable of obtaining funding via the European financial ecosystem and reducing its dependencies on non-European sources of capital. Bearing this in mind, a strong financial centre in Germany and Europe is crucially important, as is a more robust capital market culture.
Germany’s potential growth – a measure of the country’s trend rate of growth – is languishing at a multi-year low. Compared with an average of 1.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) between 2011 and 2019, it is a mere 0.4% today.
At the same time, Germany is Europe’s number one location for patent applications, and also ranks among the leading countries worldwide on this score – fifth, to be precise. However, much of Germany’s innovation is playing out in sectors characterised by lower growth potential, one of which is the automotive sector.
What is more, China has emerged as more than just a strong rival in these middle technology sectors, as they are known. Overcapacities in the Chinese economy, including in the car industry, are also rippling out to the European market, exacerbating the competition and price wars further still.
Why the United States is a high tech leader
When it comes to high tech sectors boasting strong potential growth, there’s no getting around the United States. Much of this success is down to the fact that capital (including venture capital, which is all important for funding innovation) is far easier to mobilise in US markets. While 0.8% of GDP gets invested in venture capital in the United States, it is only 0.19% in Germany. Incentives would make sense here. In Italy, pension funds benefit from tax relief if they invest 5% or 10% in venture capital funds. Generally speaking, it is important to make it easier for firms to access financing via capital markets. Fingers crossed, then, that measures like the ones envisaged in Germany under the second Future Financing Act (Zukunftsfinanzierungsgesetz II) will be taken up again. These include, for example, making it easier for firms to go public and improving the general tax rules for investment in growth and innovation capital.
There are a great many growth markets offering a wealth of opportunities for German firms, like cleantech, pharmaceuticals, bioscience or artificial intelligence. In this respect, it is very welcome to see businesses, associations and government team up as part of the WIN Initiative (Growth and Innovation Capital for Germany) to channel up to €12 billion into the venture capital ecosystem.
Sweden: four times more IPOs than Germany
But what Germany needs besides more venture capital activity is funded pensions. Sweden is a great example of how important this can be for capital markets. That Nordic country, with a population of roughly ten million, has seen 474 IPOs in total since 2015. Germany, with its much larger population, has had just 115. Sweden ranks first in the EU in the number of SME IPOs.
This striking capital market culture is due, in part, to the country’s funded pension scheme, introduced back in the 1990s. Since its launch, Sweden’s AP7 pension fund has generated an average return of more than 10%. The Netherlands also has an adequate pension system, which is mainly built around capital-funded occupational pensions.
There are many more countries I could mention that have taken similarly successful measures. A common feature is that two effects come about. First, as society ages, these models take the pressure off government budgets.
Second, a country’s economy benefits from the capital market activities of its own population, which smooths the domestic funding of innovation and growth.
German households were holding €9 trillion in capital at the end of last September – that’s a huge amount of potential investment. At present, though, only 17% of the population aged 14 and over hold shares, equity funds or ETFs.
A strong capital market would benefit the domestic economy, the general public and government alike. It would enable the economy to be funded by the region, for the region, and add substantially to Europe’s autonomy. The general public would get better provision for their old age, one that is furthermore placed on a broader footing. Also, the pressure on government budgets would be reduced, which will be significant in view of the rising expenditure burden.
In times of distinct geopolitical uncertainty, it is important for Germany and Europe to be autonomous. The capital market has a key role to play in this regard.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
World news story
UK-Southeast Asia Tech Week 2025 in Manila
The UK Government recently hosted UK-Southeast Asia Tech Week in Manila, driving innovation, collaboration and investment.
His Majesty’s Ambassador Laure Beaufils (second from right) and His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner Martin Kent (rightmost) sign a Strategic Partnership with Fintech Alliance Philippines, represented by Martha Borja and Lito Villanueva, to enhance UK-Philippines cooperation in the fintech sector, driving financial inclusion and technological advancement.
Under the theme “Bridging Boundaries, Building a Resilient, Innovative, and Inclusive Tech Ecosystem,” the event held from 24 to 25 March 2025 showcased British cutting-edge technology and expertise while fostering partnerships to strengthen the region’s tech landscape.
His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Asia Pacific, Martin Kent led the delegation of 12 pioneering British artificial intelligence (AI) and data companies, exploring opportunities for collaboration with Philippine partners in the tech ecosystem. He stated:
The UK is a global leader in science and technology, with our tech ecosystem worth US$1.2 trillion – the 3rd largest in the world after the US and China.
I am delighted to lead this delegation of cutting-edge companies to Manila for UK-Southeast Asia Tech Week to represent the UK’s tech prowess. The UK is committed to building opportunities for mutual prosperity with the Philippines, and I look forward to the innovation and new partnerships that will unfold from this week.
Companies including NCC Group, iProov and Revolut took centre stage during the UK Tech Showcase, demonstrating their latest innovations in cybersecurity, biometric authentication, and digital banking.
Panel discussions on AI and cybersecurity were conducted, providing insights on latest trends, emerging threats and best practices. The discussions also underscored the need for collaboration to address common challenges.
Furthering the UK and Philippine tech partnership, His Majesty’s Ambassador Laure Beaufils signed a Strategic Partnership with Fintech Alliance Philippines to enhance cooperation in the fintech sector, driving financial inclusion and technological advancement across the industry. She shared:
The UK is proud to be a long-standing partner in the Philippines’ digital journey, supporting initiatives that foster innovation, improve cybersecurity resilience and develop a skilled tech workforce.
British Embassy Manila and Kickstart Ventures, the Philippines’ largest corporate venture capital firm, also launched the UK Tech Growth Programme. This new collaboration is designed to match UK startups to receive potential investment from Kickstart Ventures through The Ayala Corporation Technology Innovation Venture Fund (ACTIVE Fund), the largest venture capital fund to come out of the Philippines.
Kickstart Ventures Managing Partner and Co-Founder Minette Navarrete said:
We recognise the vital role of forging partnerships beyond borders in fuelling innovation that benefits all– a commitment we take to heart at Kickstart. Our collaboration with the British Embassy is integral to this commitment, allowing us to lead transformative investments with UK startups and bring in tech-driven solutions that ensure mutual growth.
Ambassador Beaufils added:
Technology is not just about infrastructure—it’s about partnerships, trust, and shared progress. The UK is working hand in hand with the Philippines on this, supporting it to expand its tech ecosystem.
UK-Southeast Asia Tech Week 2025 reaffirms the UK’s commitment to driving innovation, strengthening partnerships, and shaping a resilient and inclusive tech ecosystem across the region.
The delegation includes British Companies Content Guru, CyberQ Group, Encompass, Intelligent AI Solutions, Kraken IM, Newcastle University, Open Data Institute, Smart Pension, Summatic, Sumsub, Synectics and Veracity Trust Network APAC.
UK, Philippines hold 5th Climate Change and Environment Dialogue
Bilateral cooperation on climate and environment is being strengthened through discussions on science, innovation, localisation, resilience, and finance.
His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Philippines, Laure Beaufils, and Environment Secretary and Official Representative of the President to the Climate Change Commission, Maria Antonia Yulo Loyzaga recently led the 5th UK-PH Climate Change and Environment (CCE) Dialogue to set the direction for the year, building on the successes of 2024.
These saw UK support for the operationalisation of the Philippines’ National Adaptation Plan, mobilisation of institutional capital into renewable energy in the country through the Philippines Stock Exchange, funding to civil society across projects on biodiversity and coastal livelihoods and launching of key multi-stakeholder platforms tacking plastic pollution and blue carbon.
Both countries agreed to establish a UK-led development partners coordination group for the localisation of climate analytics in provinces identified with high exposure to climate risks in the National Adaptation Plan, and the government’s Risk Resiliency Programme. Using the findings from pilot site of Negros Occidental, an investment platform will be developed to mobilise private capital for adaptation and resilience with a focus on climate-smart agriculture, innovative water management solutions and agroforestry projects.
The Dialogue also agreed to ramp up support for the blue economy through the UK’s Blue Planet Fund. The new COAST (Climate and Ocean Adaptation and Sustainable Transition) programme will be rolled out in the Philippines this year, which seeks to deliver interventions that will strengthen marine protected areas, operationalise sustainable fisheries management, and promote blue carbon initiatives.
Representatives reached an agreement to form a UK-DENR partnership mechanism to promote biodiversity and nature grants to local governments and communities that would not only support biodiversity conservation but also build resilience and provide long-term economic benefits for resource-dependent communities.
Representatives also agreed to ramp up collaboration on climate and nature finance. Discussions covered expanding access to sustainable financing, catalysing private capital for climate change adaptation, and aligning financial strategies with climate risk assessments to develop more investment-ready portfolio for large-scale, long-term sustainability efforts.
Ambassador Beaufils said:
I am very proud of the progress we have made together. But we won’t rest on our laurels. We are ambitious for the future, and we will continue to deliver tangible results across adaptation, climate finance, science and research, and investments into renewable energy.
Meanwhile, Secretary Loyzaga highlighted:
Our Enhanced Partnership with the UK is a testament to our commitment as like-minded countries and large ocean nations to a future that is secured under a rules-based international order. The bi-annual reviews of our climate change joint work plan will allow us to align, calibrate, and adapt when we respond to geo strategic uncertainties that we actually face.
The dialogue concluded with both countries signing a renewed partnership statement on climate and nature. The UK remains committed to supporting these efforts through expertise, financing, and advocacy for climate-vulnerable nations.
The Dialogue was attended by high-level representatives from key agencies, including the DENR, Climate Change Commission, Department of Agriculture, Department of Finance, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Energy, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, National Economic and Development Authority, the Public-Private Partnership Center and the Department of Trade and Industry.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
World news story
50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC): UK statement
David Riley, UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, gave this UK statement on the 50th anniversary of the BTWC’s entry into force.
David Riley, UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) – the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. As a founder of the convention, and for 50 years since, the UK has been at the forefront of efforts to ensure its effectiveness and collective action to eliminate the threat from biological weapons.
The BTWC’s role in preventing biological agents and toxins from being developed, produced, or used as weapons has been a critical element in our collective security over the last 50 years.
The BTWC’s call to action is that “no effort should be spared to minimise this risk.” This is as important now as it was 50 years ago. Threats posed by biological weapons have evolved and diversified. Rapid advances in science and technology offer potential benefits for societies but may also increase the threats posed by those intending to misuse the life sciences for hostile purposes.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the devastating impacts that an infectious disease outbreak can have on our societies and economies. It revealed significant gaps in global preparedness and response. It is in every country’s interest that the BTWC is effective and that its prohibitions continue to be upheld.
This requires collective action through the Convention. We need to strengthen international cooperation and review science and technology, as well as agree on stronger verification mechanisms to address potential risks. The current Working Group on the strengthening of the Convention provides an important way to achieve this. The UK fully supports the Brazilian Chair of the Working Group, Ambassador Frederico Meyer.
The UK remains steadfast in its commitment to strengthen the BTWC and its implementation for the next 50 years and beyond. We call on all governments that have not yet joined the convention to do so without delay. Through collective action, we can prevent the use of these abhorrent weapons that violate every principle of humanity.